[leekil]

You can get more dynamic range when you develop film yourself and employ highlight compression techniques from the zone system. And you can get more DR from many sensors by converting to monochrome I feel. When you pull up some the buried engineering DR too far you get color shifts and noise. But those color shifts look fine in BW.

This is the point of the underexposure/overexposure ranges in the article. He's illustrating how far you can pull or push the highlights and shadows, which will translate into compressing more dynamic range into a post processed photograph.

---------- Post added 05-04-19 at 10:36 PM ----------

We can just compare these pictures,

Monthly Photo Contests - PentaxForums.com

to these,

Lets see those ''film'' shots - Page 1260 - PentaxForums.com

(tuco's and LesDmess' too, hadn't seen that far when I posted this..)

I'm not sure this is the best comparison; the film shots in your example seem not to be postprocessed much, whereas the digital ones are. (In some cases, the digital ones look over processed, to me.) If you want to argue that people may not have access to good postprocessing (aka printing) capabilities with film, then I agree, but that's a different discussion.

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Last edited by leekil; 05-05-2019 at 07:48 PM.

[richard0170]

Everything is a gray scale except the sky. It is purple in that first one. It's kind of strange. Is that intentional?

I expect similar results would be obtained with something like Fujicolor or Kodak Gold. C41 process film has had very wide exposure latitude for many years. The point is not which medium, film or digital has the widest dynamic range, but how much DR do you really need? These shots are in very high contrast light yet display adequate details in both shadows and highlights.
In full sun on a sunny day the difference in the light between that of full shade is around five stops, you can measure it yourself with a meter. Even if we assume that the difference is higher by double during sunrise/sunset, why are companies so proud of boasting about 14 stops of DR?
More pertinently, too much detail in shadows and highlights, make things look pretty sickly and unnatural, to my taste at least. In addition two more points - Why is it that many Canon users love their cameras output - despite them being known for not having "great" DR and why do many people love the pictures of Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer and many others?
Like many things, DR has become a marketing tool of the camera manufacturers, exaggerated compared to its real function in taking pictures.

[Ranchu]

The primary reason film and digital look different, and the primary reason film looks better in general is that negative film compresses each stop of DR in the midtones into .7 stop (typical) density on film, and compresses the shadows and highlights even more. This results in an s shaped tone curve with lower contrast in the midtones than reality. Digital cannot lower contrast, it starts at 1 stop = 1 stop, flat from 0 to 256, and then you can only increase contrast in the midtones to lower it in the highlights/shadows to make an s curve.

The contrast will always be higher, which makes it an inferior medium imo. And the holes. Holes in the sky. I like the colors of film too.

[Rondec]

My digital camera advertises 14.8 stops of engineering DR. Subtract 2 or 3 stops to get photographers DR. Of all the posts here I suspect none know how many stops of light they captured. Built in light meters do not tell you that. But my one degree spot meter does. And it says I'm getting 14 stops typically. And I pretty sure I get more when I go extreme on the compression.

I think Photons to Photos gives a better judge of real (usable) dynamic range on digital cameras. For instance, for the K-1 it gives a max dynamic range at iso 100 of 11.43 while DXO Mark gives one of 14.6.

[Ranchu]

In full sun on a sunny day the difference in the light between that of full shade is around five stops, you can measure it yourself with a meter. Even if we assume that the difference is higher by double during sunrise/sunset, why are companies so proud of boasting about 14 stops of DR?

You're only measuring the difference between the average of all the tones of full sun and full shade. The difference between the brightest desired detail in the highlight and the darkest desired detail in the shadow is much greater. The only thing that has 5 stops of range is paper, or a subject lit with completely diffused lighting. Or you could maybe have that in a studio.

[richard0170]

You're only measuring the difference between the average of all the tones of full sun and full shade. The difference between the brightest desired detail in the highlight and the darkest desired detail in the shadow is much greater. The only thing that has 5 stops of range is paper, or a subject lit with completely diffused lighting. Or you could maybe have that in a studio.

Not sure what you mean. I have measured using incident light readings. Full sun 5 stops brighter than full shade.

[Ranchu]

The incident meter will give you one exposure, one which puts a midtone grey in the scene on the midtone grey on the film. The range of tones in the scene will vary above and below a midtone, and so the recorded tones will also vary above and below the 'midtone' on the film. You're measuring the the light falling on the sunlit part, and then measuring the light falling on the shade part, which will give you two midtone readings, one for each.

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Last edited by Ranchu; 05-05-2019 at 04:50 AM.

[nickthetasmaniac]

With film, the higher the ISO, the greater the exposure latitude..

I admit I’m sceptical that something like Delta 3200 or Tmax3200 is going to have greater exposure latitude than Acros100 or FP4...

[photoptimist]

The primary reason film and digital look different, and the primary reason film looks better in general is that negative film compresses each stop of DR in the midtones into .7 stop (typical) density on film, and compresses the shadows and highlights even more. This results in an s shaped tone curve with lower contrast in the midtones than reality. Digital cannot lower contrast, it starts at 1 stop = 1 stop, flat from 0 to 256, and then you can only increase contrast in the midtones to lower it in the highlights/shadows to make an s curve.

The contrast will always be higher, which makes it an inferior medium imo. And the holes. Holes in the sky. I like the colors of film too.

Exactly!

And the effect is built into the physics of the two mediums.

To a crude first approximation, a silicon sensor is a linear photon counter up to the well depth. Each added photon has the same chance to create another added electron regardless of how many or how few photons have hit the pixel before as long as the total is under the saturation point. Thus, a digital pixel is linear up to the saturation or clipping point.

To a crude first approximation, a patch of film is a random assembly of nonlinear photon detectors (the grains). Each silver halide grain remains unexposed (clear after development) unless that grain absorbs a bit of light (I've read that it typically takes about 4 photons within some timeframe which is why film shows reciprocity failure) which then makes the silver halide grain develop as black metallic silver. But once a given grain has been exposed, any additional photons absorbed by that grain do nothing to make that grain any darker. The net result is that even at highly over-exposed light levels, there's always a chance that some grains in some patch of the film will have been missed by all those photons and that more light could make that patch of film just a little darker.


NOTE: film is lot more complicated than this if you start mucking about with diluted developers. Yet the fundamental point remains that film has a smoother response to heavy over-exposure because there's always a chance of unexposed grains because all the previous photons have, by chance, hit already exposed grains. Getting every single grain in a emulsion to turn black takes a very large amount of light.

[LesDMess]

I am pretty sure I have done this test using TMAX100 but will have to look for it. TMAX is a relatively contrasty film when used with that developer so that may be why his overexposure range is being limited. OTOH Kodak Portra 400 seems to have an unending overexposure range by comparison especially when compared to digis.

[Alex645]

I admit I’m sceptical that something like Delta 3200 or Tmax3200 is going to have greater exposure latitude than Acros100 or FP4...

Understood, but it does. But again, we are talking exposure latitude not dynamic range.

Exposure latitude: What was done in the OP linked video. How many EVs bracketed over and under exposure before there is no detail in the image?

Dynamic range: In a high contrast setting with a normal exposure, what is the range of the film or sensor's ability to capture the brightest highlights thru the darkest shadows?

Lower ISO will have a greater dynamic range, but higher ISO will give a greater exposure latitude.

Here's a link that goes into more detail about the difference between EL and DR: What is the Difference between Exposure Latitude and Dynamic Range? – Wolfcrow

[LesDMess]

Great, great image !

Thank you.

Of course you can apply this wide overexposure tolerance in your photography. For instance Fuji 100 color negative also has similar tolerance - as do most color negatives.



I can look at a scene that my meter recommends a shutter speed of 1/75 and know that I can capture it at 1/2 (to smooth the waterflow in this case) with confidence that I can make a very usable picture with normal development and minimal post work.



Really the trick is to make sure the camera and subject remain steady for so long . . .

[stevebrot]

While it's not as extreme, and it's not a analog vs. digital test, this guy, Kyle McDougall, did an interesting exposure test with three of the big color negative films: Portra 400, Fuji 400H, and Ektar 100:

Testing The Exposure Limits Of Kodak's Portra 400 Film - YouTube
Testing The Exposure Limits Of Fuji Pro 400H - YouTube
Testing The Exposure Limits Of Kodak Ektar 100 - YouTube

Its not fully scientific and he doesn't cover a 21 stop range (10 stops on a Pentax 67) but to me its still quite interesting and useful.

I did a test with Ektar 100 a few years back and found it to have fairly poor exposure latitude at least as far as color rendition.

Ektar Exposure Tests (+2 to -2 stops) - PentaxForums.com

Ektar was fairly new at the time and some examples shot at EI 50 or 80 had incredibly bizarre intensely blocked reds, hence the focused study for both shade and sun lighting (different color temps). Of course, the results were normalized by the scanner, but that was the intent.


Steve

[nickthetasmaniac]

Understood, but it does. But again, we are talking exposure latitude not dynamic range.

Exposure latitude: What was done in the OP linked video. How many EVs bracketed over and under exposure before there is no detail in the image?

Dynamic range: In a high contrast setting with a normal exposure, what is the range of the film or sensor's ability to capture the brightest highlights thru the darkest shadows?

Lower ISO will have a greater dynamic range, but higher ISO will give a greater exposure latitude.

Here's a link that goes into more detail about the difference between EL and DR: What is the Difference between Exposure Latitude and Dynamic Range? – Wolfcrow

I know you’re talking about EL, not DR, and that’s what I’m skeptical of. I don’t believe you can over or underexpose Delta3200 to the same degree as FP4 (for example) and still retain a usuable image. Do you have a reference that demonstrates high ISO films have better EL?

[normhead]

I have to say, I don't care enough to even try and watch what must be a really boring movie.