[Roadboat24]

In your opinion,

How many stops would you *reasonably* expect to be able to raise the shadows and retrieve detail.

And how many to bring down the highlights and retrieve detail
At ISO 100
With the Pentax K1 , (the Mark1, not the Mark II)

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Last edited by Roadboat24; 04-04-2019 at 04:28 PM.

[GUB]

In your opinion,

How many stops would you *reasonably* expect to be able to raise the shadows and retrieve detail.

And how many to bring down the highlights and retrieve detail
At ISO 100
With the Pentax K1 , (the Mark1, not the Mark II)

As far as the shadows are concerned the answer is as many stops as you consider the equivalent Iso for that would be acceptable. Ie if you push say 5 stops you end up with about the noise level of Iso 3200. For the bright end once you have clipped the highlight thats it. But sometimes it appears otherwise because it is the jpg of your Raw that the on-camera histogram is based on. And it varies depending what jpg settings you have despite the fact you are saving in raw.

[kiwi_jono]

As GUB says, it depends how much you are willing to accept as noise starts to become apparent. Also it depends what other PP is going on at the same time, for example:
* Is contrast boosted
* Highlight / shadow compression
* Sharpening settings (can exaggerate noise)
* How saturated you have the colours (more saturation is effectively pushing exposure for that colour)

For me, from a practical stand point (combined with other PP changes), I have pushed 3 stops just fine but with a little NR applied to clean up darker areas. More commonly I would not need to push areas more than say 2 stops if I have my exposure right (otherwise starts to take on a HDR look to the photos that I don't like).

[biz-engineer]

How many stops would you *reasonably* expect to be able to raise the shadows and retrieve detail.

Assuming that you use ISO100 and that your exposure is centered on mid-gray, the sensor can record around 13bits range, 6bits are required for visually acceptable tone coding, 5bits (~30dB) min, clipping is is located 3 stops above mid-gray => mid-gray is around bit # 10, => 10 - 6 = 4. You can pull 4 ev +-1ev => you can pull shadows between 3ev and 5ev.

[Roadboat24]

Thank you all for your responses.

Your answers confirm my (completely unscientific) experience with the camera.

In general, with the exposure centered on mid-gray, I can usually pull shadows up between 3 to 3.5 stops.
With highlights, pulled down about 2 to maybe 2.5 stops, to be acceptable to my eyes.
I understand that this is quite general and scene dependent.

And as Gub says, once highlights are blown they are gone,

I'm with Kiwi_jono, two stops either way is more comfortable.

[Medex]

Pentax K-1 Mark II Camera Review

Dynamic Range

Dynamic range is very good especially at ISO 400 and 800 (10.1 and 10.0 f-stops, respectively).
At ISO 3200 and below, dynamic range is decent: 8.9 f-stops at ISO 3200, 7.6 at ISO 12800, and 6.6 at ISO 51200.
Dynamic range produced by the K1 was also excellent: 9.7 f-stops at ISO 100, and 10 and above at ISOs 400 and 800. From ISO 6400 (7.7 f-stops) and above, the dynamic range was less good in the K1.

[biz-engineer]

The best DR is when the highlights of a scene are at the limit of being burned. On my K1, it is located at +2.5ev above middle-gray, using the spot meter and AE_L to lock exposure settings before recomposing. High light can be deliberately burned if the high-light is not important in the scene and the shadow detail is an important component of a photograph, to do so expose -2ev using spot meter placed in the shadow and AE_L to lock exposure settings before framing the scene.

[Roadboat24]

Biz-engineer, that's about the same as I can get. Appreciate your information. Thanks

[normhead]

I shoot everything at -.7 EV, then move the EV dial up and down until I have the image histogram the way i want it.

But to maintain shadow detail that looks good I like -1 EV.


But there are conditions where -2 is necessary.

You want the DR centred on the sky, the darker elements are relatively un-important.


It's dark, you want it to look dark
2019-04-05-minus-2-EV- 1 byNorm Head, on Flickr

I had to go dark to keep the dock from being blown out.


Subject in the shade, light background.


Subject is in bright sunlight, back ground is in shadow.


This is a decision I make checking the histogram and the image when chimping, and for every image I have another one taken with no EV compensation just as good taken in similar circumstance. The DR of the K-1 makes this a lot less critical, but if you do pay attention to your EV setting, you can get better images. Most of the time, I've bracketed and then selected the best images, and the images range from -3 to plus 1 can be found in my photos, but usually .7 EV gives me the best result. I haven't found a rule for how this works. It's always trial and error.

It's also surprising looking at the K-1 images, how many images are taken at -0.7 to 0 EV. The increased DR of the K-1 has meant less, tinkering with the EV button. I have very few exposures that required radical adjustment since I stopped using the K-3 for landscape and started using the K-1.

[SteveinSLC]

DR is very good with the K-1.

I have found that it is very easy to dig detail out of shadows in post, so I'll typically underexpose. Recovering blown highlights is harder.

[savoche]

In your opinion,

How many stops would you *reasonably* expect to be able to raise the shadows and retrieve detail.

And how many to bring down the highlights and retrieve detail
At ISO 100
With the Pentax K1 , (the Mark1, not the Mark II)

As far as I'm concerned the dynamic range of the K-1 is amazing. After a couple of years I'm still amazed. I try to avoid blowing the highlights and then bring up the shadows as much as I need to. I don't worry much about noise - careful noise removal can fix a lot if needed.

Sorry, I realise that my answer doesn't help those who are looking for "rules" - my rule for most things regarding photography is "whatever it takes".

[y0chang]

After getting my K-1 I am getting quite spoiled. I have other cameras Pentax and Fuji APC-C and now a Panasonic m43...and I am always surprised when basically I can underexpose by multiple stops on a K-1 to expose say a strong bright sky and still pull up the shadows for great detail and color depth....then disappointed when I can't do the same for other cameras.

[Pikselisiirto]

I'm using UniWB custom white balance, so that live view histogram is very accurate for RAW photos. Then it is easy to change exposure to saturate ISO 100, if enough light. Usually I keep checking left side of the histogram until it has first high spikes at the edge. Then I know that K-1 dynamic range has been maxed out and therefore exposure has been optimized.

I posted a photo to K-1 image thread here and it seems to have pretty much maximum dynamic range this camera can do. It is also pixel shifted, so it adds at least 1 stop or a bit more. Nice bonus when pixel shift itself is successful



This is what Rawdigger shows for one photo. Yes, it looks very dark because I squeezed every drop of highlight detail I could without getting visible shadow noise.