# example of 6 stop push in post



## jaayres20 (May 20, 2016)

Most dynamic range test I have read seems to set the standard of a 6 stop push in relation to good dynamic range. I have really never needed more than a couple of stops, however now that I have the 1DX2 I thought I would give it a try just to see if I could do it. I took this shot of a sunrise and exposed for the sky which made the trees and the remaining landscape black. When I opened the image in ACR I only had to push the exposure .2 stops. I did boost the shadows to 100% and I am sure that is equivalent to a couple of extra stops Which would mean that I had an overall push of what, 2.5 stops? I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this. Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?


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## sebasan (May 20, 2016)

Is this result only with the post process you mention? No noise reduction? Vibrance? saturation? sharpness? Because I see a great result.
I think that in 99% of the cases, if you are a photographer with some knowledge, you won't need a 6 stops push. Even in the most challenging condition of contrast, if you want a "real looking" result you are not going to push so many stops.


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## Mikehit (May 20, 2016)

The advice when using NDs for sunsets is to use a filter that gives 2 stop difference between sky and land which pretty much matches what you have shown. 
But I guess if the camera can be pushed 6 stops it will have fewer artefacts in a 2-stop push than a camera capable of a only 4-stop push. And these artefacts may be noise or may be colour shifts.


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## dcm (May 20, 2016)

sebasan said:


> Is this result only with the post process you mention? No noise reduction? Vibrance? saturation? sharpness? Because I see a great result.
> I think that in 99% of the cases, if you are a photographer with some knowledge, you won't need a 6 stops push. Even in the most challenging condition of contrast, if you want a "real looking" result you are not going to push so many stops.



His screenshot suggests he adjusted a bit more than just exposure and shadows.


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## Sporgon (May 20, 2016)

dcm said:


> His screenshot suggests he adjusted a bit more than just exposure and shadows.



Doesn't alter the lift. In fact raising contrast and clarity (mid tone contrast) would actually hurt it.

However jaayres20 Old Pal, you haven't played fair. You exposed to just hold those highlights in the sky. What's the good of that ? You could have under exposed them by five stops just to be sure that nothing was within five stops of being blown. Just because you have a nice new 1DxII with a meter in it doesn't mean you have to sail so close to the wind ! Now if you'd under exposed by the correct amount you'd then be looking at a seven stop lift, and the 1DxII can't do it ! Seems like you need one of the guys from DPR to come and show you how to under expose properly. 

Anyway, even though you've cheated it's a very pleasing shot ! And yes, I'd say 100% shadow lift in ACR is about 2 stops depending on where the dark tones have started from, so I'd say you were under 2.5 stops lift.


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## privatebydesign (May 20, 2016)

The Shadow and Highlight sliders are not linear, they are smart and depend on the image tonal values.

Having said that if you put a step wedge in LR and lift shadows +100 then Zone 1 goes to Zone IV, a three stop lift. Same with the Highlights slider which you applied a three stop pull to. 

You also lifted exposure by 1/5 stop, so you have a combined 3.2 stop lift and a 2.8 stop pull. That is a six stop change in tonality.


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## unfocused (May 20, 2016)

jaayres20 said:


> I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this.



That's great. But, if you are saying that no one else should ever need more than this, that's not true.

Not sure about six stops, but I can see cases where others might need more than your example shows.

I recall an example from a couple of years ago provided by JRista, in which he was trying to duplicate a scene of backlit sunflowers near sunset and realized that his Canon (I believe he was using a 5DIII) was simply not up to the task. The difference between his example and yours was the need to maintain maximum detail and decent brightness in the flowers (your scene does not require as much exposure in the grass) and, I believe, the sun was a bit higher in the sky and brighter.

At the time, many were critical of his criticism of Canon sensors (myself included). I now realize that was unfair and I was wrong. (belated apology JRista)

Everyone has different shooting conditions and it's wrong to assume that just because you may not need something, that shouldn't mean that others don't as well.

You've asked about conditions where a six stop push might be needed. I don't know about six stops, but I'll use my own real life example. I shoot a lot of sports for one client. I can assure you that capturing the facial details of an African-American baseball player who is wearing a ball cap that shades his face and also a newly laundered bright white uniform at mid-day on a sunny day will leave you wanting every bit of dynamic range possible. 

Six stops? Maybe not. And yes, I can still successfully process such images and get good results, but that doesn't mean I don't desire more range and flexibility. 

I'm pleased that the 1DX II has greater dynamic range. But, I'm really getting tired of people extrapolating their personal experience to the rest of the world and claiming that anyone who needs something that we don't happen to need makes that person a bad photographer or that review sites that point out these differences are corrupt and biased. 

It's about time to put this whole discussion to bed and move on.


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## privatebydesign (May 20, 2016)

If you want images that look like this http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=14773.msg431465#msg431465 then maybe you have a point, I don't!

But I do take the point, and always have, that more DR can't hurt and I'll welcome it when it arrives. Having said that I do not have that many times when one or two stops more DR would make that much difference, I often need five six or seven stops more, but one or two I can normally fairly easily mitigate with good technique.

I also know the wedding/event shooters where they have a flash misfire or very fast changing light where the perfect timed image isn't the perfectly exposed image can have a requirement for noise free shadow lifting.

But the DR thing has been done to death and there seems to be little difference in the various manufacturers cameras at this time, so we'll have to find something else to get all religious about.


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## unfocused (May 20, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> If you want images that look like this http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=14773.msg431465#msg431465 then maybe you have a point, I don't!
> 
> But I do take the point, and always have, that more DR can't hurt and I'll welcome it when it arrives. Having said that I do not have that many times when one or two stops more DR would make that much difference, I often need five six or seven stops more, but one or two I can normally fairly easily mitigate with good technique.
> 
> ...



Absolutely agree. And, no, those aren't my cup of tea either. Thanks for finding those. My point was simply that someone had a reason why they wanted more dynamic range and I was far too critical of that desire at the time. I'm not very good at it, but when I realize I'm wrong, I try to admit it, rather than double down – which seems to be a common trait on the internet. (now about Canon's failure to produce a radio receiver for 580EX strobes...JUST KIDDING!!!! I put that baby to bed long ago. 



> But the DR thing has been done to death and there seems to be little difference in the various manufacturers cameras at this time, so we'll have to find something else to get all religious about.



I think I'll save that to the clipboard and make it a standard response. Frankly I'd like to take all the "lens cap photographers" and all the "only an idiot needs more dynamic range" folks and lock them all in a room with 100 hungry tigers. Except that would be unfair to the tigers.


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## d (May 20, 2016)

unfocused said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this.
> ...



Jaayres' reflexive use of the pronoun "myself" here indicates that they are, in fact, referring only to themselves - no other parties are referenced.



unfocused said:


> Everyone has different shooting conditions and it's wrong to assume that just because you may not need something, that shouldn't mean that others don't as well.



Who is making assumptions here?



unfocused said:


> I'm pleased that the 1DX II has greater dynamic range. But, I'm really getting tired of people extrapolating their personal experience to the rest of the world and claiming that anyone who needs something that we don't happen to need makes that person a bad photographer or that review sites that point out these differences are corrupt and biased.



The OP neither extrapolates nor makes the claims you've invented here. It is you, in fact, extrapolating what is written in their post.



unfocused said:


> It's about time to put this whole discussion to bed and move on.



Go on then...put it to bed and move on!


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## d (May 20, 2016)

jaayres20 said:


> Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?



Hi Jaayres, I shoot with a 1Dx and generally encounter very few situations where I might want to recover more than a couple of stops of details from the shadows. One scenario where I've wanted more than the camera could deliver has involved shooting the northern lights in Iceland, where I've been trying to limit my shutter speed so the shape and pattern of the aurora isn't lost in a blurred smudge (the aurora can move quite quickly sometimes) and stars are preserved as point sources. But this means bumping up the ISO higher than I'd like, making subsequent shadow recovery very noisy, and some of the darkest parts of the image just end up unrecoverable.

Ideally I might instead capture two exposures to be blended later, one for the lights/sky, and another for the landscape/foreground, but there are occasions where the aurora is very active and I've had to decide between following up my 10/15/20 second exposure with a longer one for the landscape/foreground, or reframing my scene because the aurora is more now more active in different part of the sky.

This is an extreme example for me, and as I said I generally find the 1Dx to be fine, but I do on occasion wish I could get more from the files.

Cheers,
d.


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## IglooEater (May 21, 2016)

Hi Jaayres20, I'd be curious to see what the same file would look like with nothing applied except a 6 stop push. I know most of the image would be blown out, but I'm curious as to how bright the darkest parts would look.


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## unfocused (May 21, 2016)

d said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > It's about time to put this whole discussion to bed and move on.
> ...



Upon reflection, I think you made some valid points. I inferred from the OP things that he may not have meant and that was wrong of me. I have modified by post to reflect that. Apologies if I offended anyone.


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## d (May 21, 2016)

unfocused said:


> Upon reflection, I think you made some valid points. I inferred from the OP things that he may not have meant and that was wrong of me. I have modified by post to reflect that. Apologies if I offended anyone.



I'm sure the OP appreciates your updated post - thanks for doing so.

Cheers,
d.


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## Valvebounce (May 22, 2016)

Hi unfocused. 
Mistakes are easily made, what is much harder is putting your hand up and admitting and apologising for that mistake, the world would be a much nicer place if more people were big enough to admit and apologise for their mistakes. Kudos to you for doing just that. 
I'm quite surprised that this discussion has remained civilised given the topic, well done to all contributors for that, it is what keeps me coming back to this forum, thanks. 

Cheers, Graham. 



unfocused said:


> d said:
> 
> 
> > unfocused said:
> ...


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## privatebydesign (May 22, 2016)

Valvebounce said:


> Hi unfocused.
> Mistakes are easily made, what is much harder is putting your hand up and admitting and apologising for that mistake, the world would be a much nicer place if more people were big enough to admit and apologise for their mistakes. Kudos to you for doing just that.
> I'm quite surprised that this discussion has remained civilised given the topic, well done to all contributors for that, it is what keeps me coming back to this forum, thanks.
> 
> ...



Very true. I hope I can follow unfocused's example, makes the site a much nicer place to come.


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## 3kramd5 (May 22, 2016)

d said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > I'm pleased that the 1DX II has greater dynamic range. But, I'm really getting tired of people extrapolating their personal experience to the rest of the world and claiming that anyone who needs something that we don't happen to need makes that person a bad photographer or that review sites that point out these differences are corrupt and biased.
> ...



It is a bit odd, however, to call Unfocused out for speaking for the OP and, in response to his mea culpa, speaking for the OP yourself


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## d (May 22, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> It is a bit odd, however, to call Unfocused out for speaking for the OP and, in response to his mea culpa, speaking for the OP yourself



The OP made some statements pertaining to his own experiences and needs. Unfocused responded negatively as if the OP was speaking on behalf of many, which clearly wasn't the case. I didn't speak for the OP or respondent, simply pointed out the misinterpretation and unfairness of the reply. Quite simple - nothing odd.


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## 3kramd5 (May 22, 2016)

d said:


> 3kramd5 said:
> 
> 
> > It is a bit odd, however, to call Unfocused out for speaking for the OP and, in response to his mea culpa, speaking for the OP yourself
> ...




Yes, he responded as if he was sure the OP was speaking globally rather than individually. Similarly, you're sure the OP appreciates the edit even though there is no indication he even cared one way or another about the original.

FWIW you were spot on in your response; the OP explicitly was speaking of his own experince. And you're right, it's not odd, rather "I'm sure the OP appreciates [it]" is merely amusing in this context.


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## d (May 22, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> Yes, he responded as if he was sure the OP was speaking globally rather than individually. Similarly, you're sure the OP appreciates the edit even though there is no indication he even cared one way or another about the original.
> 
> FWIW you were spot on in your response; the OP explicitly was speaking of his own experince. And you're right, it's not odd, rather "I'm sure the OP appreciates [it]" is merely amusing in this context.



Do you have any examples or thoughts regarding 6 stop post-pushes, rather than thoughts on thoughts about thoughts regarding thoughts? I'm sure can you find something constructive to contribute if you try


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## 3kramd5 (May 22, 2016)

Nope. I found plenty of photos where I locally increased exposure to +4 (which in ACR I believe is equal to 4 stops) in order to blow out an inadequately-lit white background, but can't find anything close to 6 where I was trying to retain detail.


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## EdB (May 23, 2016)

My attempt at a six stop push. Not sure I'm doing it right.


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## quod (May 23, 2016)

jaayres20 said:


> Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?


The point behind the multi-stop pushes is that with some sensors (Exmors), there is substantially less decline in image quality when pushing an image when compared to Canon sensors. So, the theory is that you can take a picture at ISO 3200 with 9 stops of dynamic range, or you can take it at ISO 100 with 14 stops of dynamic range and push that image up. The Exmors push shadows very well. I don't think anyone actually does this because if the required push is that substantial, it makes more sense to HDR or composite the shot.


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## privatebydesign (May 23, 2016)

quod said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?
> ...



Well that is the theory, in practice heavily lifted shadows lose tonality and look like crap at anything over web size.

It is just maths, if you have x number of tones per stop, as we do in digital imaging be it 8bit, 14 bit or 16bit, if you then spread that one stop of tones out over six stops you have one sixth the tonal range. Those bottom six stops might not have any/much noise, but they look like mud because they don't have the tonality we are used to.


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## quod (May 23, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Well that is the theory, in practice heavily lifted shadows lose tonality and look like crap at anything over web size.


Test an Exmor before making this statement. I'm not saying they are perfect, but they are in a different league than Canon.

Here's a 2-stop push with the 645Z. No degraded IQ to my eye. I get similar results from my A7RII:

http://starvingphotographer.com/pentax-645z-real-world-dynamic-range/


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## privatebydesign (May 23, 2016)

quod said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Well that is the theory, in practice heavily lifted shadows lose tonality and look like crap at anything over web size.
> ...



I print for many photographers and have done everything from iPhones to scanned large format film, not saying this to try to sound like a big shot, I'm not, just saying it for background relevance. I have printed many Exmor images which is why I felt qualified to make the comment.

We were talking about 6 stop lifts not 2 stop lifts. There is a three fold difference (on a linear capture scale) between 2 stops and 6 stops which equates to three times less tones, with a gamma curve applied (which there is) there is a difference in luminence of 64 times. I can lift an iPhone image two stops and print to 18", I know that because I did it this week.

The 'answer' to higher IQ is not less noise where there is practically no signal, the answer is more signal, or more efficient photon to electron conversion and deeper FWC.

So do this test, take a picture of a ball or smoothly curved object with side light such that you get very wide falloff and gradation, expose it optimally. Now under expose by six stops. Now put both images in two windows in PS next to each other after lifting the underexposed image six stops and tell me you can't see a difference.

Now we are in a period of 'good enough' I appreciate that, VHS was technically less strong than Betamax but it was 'good enough', MP3's are 'good enough', heck for the majority of people phones make 'good enough' cameras. But, for me, six stop lifting is far from good enough.


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## quod (May 24, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> So do this test, take a picture of a ball or smoothly curved object with side light such that you get very wide falloff and gradation, expose it optimally. Now under expose by six stops. Now put both images in two windows in PS next to each other after lifting the underexposed image six stops and tell me you can't see a difference.


No, I think you should waste your time doing this. In fact, you should do it with your phone because we are in an era where that is good enough, right?


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## bwud (May 24, 2016)

Here's an example of a pretty extreme DR squish.

As Private By Design mentioned, with the full push (+4 exposure, +100 shadows), while there is little noise in the shadows, there's also little detail. It just looks flat - there's no depth.

That's because it's a shadowed area - it never had the chance to record significant data. While I can make it brighter without noise dominating, I can't create detail from nothing.

Finally attached is a half-assed attempt to balancing it better: +100 shadows, -.2 exposure, -14 black clipping, which is nowhere near 6 stops.


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## jrista (May 24, 2016)

unfocused said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this.
> ...



I agree. It doesn't look like a six-stop push. A few stops, and it looks good, but I wouldn't call it a six stop shadow push. 



unfocused said:


> I recall an example from a couple of years ago provided by JRista, in which he was trying to duplicate a scene of backlit sunflowers near sunset and realized that his Canon (I believe he was using a 5DIII) was simply not up to the task. The difference between his example and yours was the need to maintain maximum detail and decent brightness in the flowers (your scene does not require as much exposure in the grass) and, I believe, the sun was a bit higher in the sky and brighter.
> 
> At the time, many were critical of his criticism of Canon sensors (myself included). I now realize that was unfair and I was wrong. (belated apology JRista)



.......thanks...? (Sorry...I'm....honestly not sure if that is real?)


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## jrista (May 24, 2016)

jaayres20 said:


> Most dynamic range test I have read seems to set the standard of a 6 stop push in relation to good dynamic range. I have really never needed more than a couple of stops, however now that I have the 1DX2 I thought I would give it a try just to see if I could do it. I took this shot of a sunrise and exposed for the sky which made the trees and the remaining landscape black. When I opened the image in ACR I only had to push the exposure .2 stops. I did boost the shadows to 100% and I am sure that is equivalent to a couple of extra stops Which would mean that I had an overall push of what, 2.5 stops? I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this. Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?



Personally I like landscape shots into the sunset. As unfocused said, I tried to do that some years back with my 5D III, and in a single frame it wasn't up to the task:












I did try HDR, however that was very, very problematic around the sun, where the HDR blending simply didn't hold up well and produced funky posterization and other artifacts that I had to spend a good deal of time manually processing out:






I have meant to get back out to those fields and try again, but...never really had the will to bother with the 5D III. Been waiting for Canon to produce a lower noise full frame DSLR to try again...gave up waiting a while ago when I got into astrophotography. Maybe the 5D IV will finally deliver the kind of quality I am looking for...I truly hope so. I've been waiting for it since 2009...


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## Mikehit (May 24, 2016)

quod said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > So do this test, take a picture of a ball or smoothly curved object with side light such that you get very wide falloff and gradation, expose it optimally. Now under expose by six stops. Now put both images in two windows in PS next to each other after lifting the underexposed image six stops and tell me you can't see a difference.
> ...



WOW! talk about a misquote.


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## Aglet (May 24, 2016)

jrista said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > Most dynamic range test I have read seems to set the standard of a 6 stop push in relation to good dynamic range. I have really never needed more than a couple of stops, however now that I have the 1DX2 I thought I would give it a try just to see if I could do it. I took this shot of a sunrise and exposed for the sky which made the trees and the remaining landscape black. When I opened the image in ACR I only had to push the exposure .2 stops. I did boost the shadows to 100% and I am sure that is equivalent to a couple of extra stops Which would mean that I had an overall push of what, 2.5 stops? I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this. Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?
> ...



I haven't seen a "need" for a 6 stop push in post (not including the shadow compression that occurs in the print driver) but I've pushed Exmor files considerably with perfectly usable results so, similar to the one-shot sunset JRista shows was a failure with Canon, was a success with Nikon.

camera jpg





pushed raw





I don't remember the exact amount of push in the shadow areas of this shot but when I was playing with it I could bring out the footprints and sand texture in the lower right without any serious loss of tonality... It just didn't look how I wanted it to for the overall image.


above images were posted in the sunset gallery in 2012, the year I was done waiting for Canon to improve sensor performance :
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=8105.msg161888#msg161888


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## Sporgon (May 24, 2016)

You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed it would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it here.

Keep under exposing the Canon like that and you'll sure get crap shadows. You'll also get crap totality on an exmor type sensor but that seems to be quite acceptable to some.


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## privatebydesign (May 24, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed it would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it here.
> 
> Keep under exposing the Canon like that and you'll sure get crap shadows. You'll also get crap totality on an exmor type sensor but that seems to be quite acceptable to some.



I was hoping it wouldn't have to be me to take on those two bullshit 'examples', thanks Sporgon


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## Aglet (May 24, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> Keep under exposing the Canon like that and you'll sure get crap shadows.



that's for sure, and obvious, altho latest generation (7d2 & 80d) have, at least, seemed to do away with the picket-fence FPN that made "lack of tonality" the least objectionable downside to shooting like this with a Canon.



> You'll also get crap totality on an exmor type sensor but that seems to be quite acceptable to some.


Are you speaking from experience? i don't recall you giving an exmor body more than a perfunctory test and possibly without altering your workflow.

What's being pushed isn't necessarily coming from the very bottom 1 or 2 bits of exmor info.
There's enough tonal data, that when combined with natural textures in some shots, makes for acceptable output even at large print sizes. Certainly a heck of a lot better than a single-shot Canon image if you try to wring out too much shadow info!


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## Aglet (May 24, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed..



actually, they're perfectly exposed to retain the highlite data adjacent to the sun.

You wanna stack a bracketed shot for waves?.. go ahead.
I don't have that kind of time or patience which is why I chose better tools to acquire cleaner raw data.

Exmor = post-processing bliss vs Canon's constipated raw files for the kind of shooting I do on a regular basis.

BUT - I'm not trying to make you switch systems.  You keep using what you're happy with.
I'm just saying _I'm_ MUCH happier since I switched.


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## bwud (May 24, 2016)

Aglet said:


> What's being pushed isn't necessarily coming from the very bottom 1 or 2 bits of exmor info.



Same is true with other sensors.

Regardless, shadows are shadows, and there is a significant lack of detail there as compared to mid tones, for obvious reasons. If you want to record more detail in the shadows, you have to expose for them, which may result in clipped highlights. For a given sensor, you can maximize shadow detail without clipping the other end by ETTR. With Exmor sensors, decreasing noise has probably reached diminishing returns (I have no practical experience with the latest Canon sensors and thus won't make a similar statement).


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## Larsskv (May 24, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed it would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it here.
> ...



+1


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## Aglet (May 25, 2016)

bwud said:


> Aglet said:
> 
> 
> > What's being pushed isn't necessarily coming from the very bottom 1 or 2 bits of exmor info.
> ...



that's pretty much correct, there's not much detail to be had in dark shadow areas so if you're pushing them so hard all you get is a posterized mess lifted into lower midtones then it's grossly overdone and other methods should have been considered.
If you get a stripey noisy mess with a small push it likely only means you're shooting some version of Canon that does not do well for this kind of post work.
_... which is why I think the "lack of tonality" argument is moot._
If the file had enough shadow detail to do a good push without making a mess then there's no problem. This is easily accomplished with ABC cameras and even some Canon raw files that have enough SNR in the raw file.
"Properly exposed" is more applicable to a Canon raw file when you want to push it. The exmor sensored cameras just have more latitude and less noise.

There's little point re-igniting the flames of this argument. The simple fact is you can shoot the same scene with the same settings with Canon and some Exmor-equipped camera and the latter will provide more shadow editing latitude at low ISO (typically 800 or less). It saves time and can produce acceptable results with much less effort.
And, in the example I provided, there's no "lack of tonality" because there's still plenty of shadow data remaining.

EDIT: The only real merit to a 6-stop push is to show the relative SNR (signal to noise ratio) quality of the file. It's unlikely to be used to that extent for practical or even artistic reasons.

I've occasionally re-hot a scene with a bit more exposure to gain "better tonality" data when I underexposed too far trying to maintain highlite tonality. So even us Exmor users will occasionally bracket a little or sacrifice some hilite data to optimize what we want. It's a just a different tool with different abilities and some of us are happier or more comfortable with that.


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## 9VIII (May 25, 2016)

jrista said:


> jaayres20 said:
> 
> 
> > Most dynamic range test I have read seems to set the standard of a 6 stop push in relation to good dynamic range. I have really never needed more than a couple of stops, however now that I have the 1DX2 I thought I would give it a try just to see if I could do it. I took this shot of a sunrise and exposed for the sky which made the trees and the remaining landscape black. When I opened the image in ACR I only had to push the exposure .2 stops. I did boost the shadows to 100% and I am sure that is equivalent to a couple of extra stops Which would mean that I had an overall push of what, 2.5 stops? I just can't see myself ever really needing more than this. Does anyone have an example of an image where they needed a full 6 stop push?
> ...



To a certain extent I have to agree with the peanut gallery.
The final HDR shot looks great, but also has the sun mostly overexposed again, if that had been the case in the first shot it might have produced some usable detail in the flowers.
What I really have to wonder is how it would have turned out coming off a 6D. Canon did fix most of the banding, the biggest problem with the 5D series wasn't a total lack of DR, it was how it responded to adjustments within the range it did have.


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## J.R. (May 25, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed it would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it here.
> 
> Keep under exposing the Canon like that and you'll sure get crap shadows. You'll also get crap totality on an exmor type sensor but that seems to be quite acceptable to some.



Sporgon my friend, you have NO right to complain after having said ... this - 



Sporgon said:


> You exposed to just hold those highlights in the sky. What's the good of that ? You could have under exposed them by five stops just to be sure that nothing was within five stops of being blown. Just because you have a nice new 1DxII with a meter in it doesn't mean you have to sail so close to the wind ! Now if you'd under exposed by the correct amount you'd then be looking at a seven stop lift, and the 1DxII can't do it ! Seems like you need one of the guys from DPR to come and show you how to under expose properly.



;D


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## bwud (May 25, 2016)

Aglet said:


> And, in the example I provided, there's no "lack of tonality" because there's still plenty of shadow data remaining.



But it's 6-stops being discussed. That's the difference between your deep foreground shadows being recorded in a 1-second exposure versus a 1-minute exposure. You didn't push it that hard. As discussed before, I don't believe your scene is one which canon sensors would struggle to capture. Here's a similar one (albeit with the sun slightly higher):







The scene I showed on the previous page is more difficult. If I were to re-shoot that with my 5D3 and attempt to lighten those beams similarly (+4 + 100), they'd turn into a red grid (again, I haven't used the latest generation so I don't know how for example 1Dx II would handle it). Because of the lower read noise on my A7R II (on which that was shot), I am able to brighten that shadow area significantly... but there's nothing there.


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## TeT (May 25, 2016)

I expected to open up the thread and see pictures of a cat in a closet with the light off and the door closed.

Nice images, and realistic application of manipulation... Thanks for sharing...


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## Sporgon (May 25, 2016)

Aglet said:


> > You'll also get crap totality on an exmor type sensor but that seems to be quite acceptable to some.
> 
> 
> Are you speaking from experience?



I have used, amongst others, D800, Sony a7, Pentax K5. When I used the Nikon it was to assess the 36 mp resolution against what I had; I didn't bother with looking at shadow lifting.

I don't have many images exposed the way you like, but here is one shot on the K5, a camera that DxO says has 14.5 stops of DR. I purposely under exposed it to hold all the cloud around the sun to see what would happen when I lifted the rest of the image.

Below is the result. The first shot is at 100 ISO and the straight DNg, the second is lifted 6 stops. The tonality is totally crap and unacceptable to me. All sense of tone has gone, and we are left with a regular pattern noise. True, the Canon was much worse, with irregular colour noise, but so what ? I don't want either. 

The third picture is shot at 100 ISO on the 5DII, straight into the sun, one hour and a half hours after sunrise. I hid the sun disk behind the far right stone work. The last picture is a 100% crop from this frame. Compare the colour and tonality with the 6 stop lift exmor. There is no comparison. Of course this shot is a three frame bracket. 

Unfortunately I didn't do a bracketed shot of the boats because I was just concerned with seeing the results of an under exposure.


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## Sporgon (May 25, 2016)

J.R. said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > You guys have gotta be kidding. The originals of those sunset shots are so under exposed it would be unbelievable if I hadn't seen it here.
> ...



;D ;D

Had some training doing it the 5 stops under method  

See above.


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## Sporgon (May 25, 2016)

I've just realised that in the exmor six stop lift I showed in the post above ACR was applying colour noise reduction, which I had meant to take off. So here is the actual exmor lift with no noise reduction.

Sure, it's way better than the older generation Canon cameras, but still useless to me as far as a viable alternative to correct bracketing is concerned.


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## Aglet (May 26, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> The third picture is shot at 100 ISO on the 5DII, straight into the sun, one hour and a half hours after sunrise. I hid the sun disk behind the far right stone work. The last picture is a 100% crop from this frame. Compare the colour and tonality with the 6 stop lift exmor. There is no comparison. Of course this shot is a three frame bracket.



I think I was expecting a 4th image to be included in that series, the 100% crop of a 3-shot bracket?...

but just looking at the 3rd image, I'm seeing lots of clipped black areas, like the black level was raised a bit to boost overall contrast. Which is fine, artistically, if that's what you're going for; it works for this shot.

With all the natural texture available, and the amount of daylight available, i think this shot would have been an easy one-shot and curve adjust with a D800 to get the same result without blending bracketed shots and it would have retained more tonal detail in shadow areas than is evident here. Might have lost a touch more of the brightest bit of cloud. I'd have started w my kit at iso100, f/8 and 1/2000s and tweak as needed. And it's all static, so bracket-stack is a viable option whatever you're shooting.

But that's a good example. I wish I had some nice architecture around here like that to shoot.


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## Aglet (May 26, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> I've just realised that in the exmor six stop lift I showed in the post above ACR was applying colour noise reduction, which I had meant to take off. So here is the actual exmor lift with no noise reduction.
> 
> Sure, it's way better than the older generation Canon cameras, but still useless to me as far as a viable alternative to correct bracketing is concerned.



It all depends on what you want as a final result. If you wanted those foreground boats to be very visible you'd sacrifice more highlite tonality for a one-shot with the K5 or you'd bracket so you could really lift those boats and hopefully not have to deal with larger waves that would be an obvious challenge as they move during the bracket series.

In the sunset example I provided earlier, I did not push those shadow areas that much as I really didn't want the footprints in the sand in the lower right to be very visible; they'd be a bit of a distraction from my intent.
If I did want to show them well then I'd have to bracket and do selective layer blending to keep only one set of waves... no fun for me.


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## Sporgon (May 26, 2016)

Aglet said:


> With all the natural texture available, and the amount of daylight available, i think this shot would have been an easy one-shot and curve adjust with a D800 to get the same result without blending bracketed shots and it would have retained more tonal detail in shadow areas than is evident here. Might have lost a touch more of the brightest bit of cloud. I'd have started w my kit at iso100, f/8 and 1/2000s and tweak as needed.



Actually I concede you are quite right here: the D800 would have eaten this up in one frame as the _5DII_ has very nearly done it in one exposure. I am attaching the middle bracket of this shot, which as part of a bracketed sequence is not optimised for a single frame, yet you can see that it is very nearly there, and this is not a 6D or 5DIII etc. 

The first pic is the raw, the second the adjustment and the third shows that even on a 5DII, when exposed correctly, there is no issue with banding, FPN etc etc. Note all noise reduction was off. 

So not a good example on my part, but my point was, and is, this: 

You guys who use severe, chronic under exposure on the Canon to try and demonstrate a weakness do yourselves no favours when the same degree of under exposure would also cripple the exmor performance, as shown in my K5 example, and that wasn't anything like as under exposed as rista's example.


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## 3kramd5 (May 26, 2016)

Sporgon said:


> You guys who use severe, chronic under exposure on the Canon to try and demonstrate a weakness do yourselves no favours when the same degree of under exposure would also cripple the exmor performance



Interestingly put. Obviously it comes down to personal taste, because many people would argue that such a degree of underexposure doesn't in fact cripple data from exmor sensors. I can only conclude that they value lack of noise much more significantly than shadow tonality, perhaps because the former is more obvious to most viewers.

Personally, since I am not perfect and have vastly underexposed shots (generally when I suddenly change framing and don't adjust exposure settings quickly enough before I take the shot which caught my eye), I don't poo-poo the ability to lift shadows without creating distracting noise; it could easily make or break a shot which means something to me (like my son doing something special). It won't likely turn a mistake into an award winning photograph, however.


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## Sporgon (May 26, 2016)

3kramd5 said:


> Sporgon said:
> 
> 
> > You guys who use severe, chronic under exposure on the Canon to try and demonstrate a weakness do yourselves no favours when the same degree of under exposure would also cripple the exmor performance
> ...



I think that you have probably hit the nail on the head there. You only really run into trouble with the ( older generation) Canon cameras when you hit, or are very close to the buffers at the low light end, so values of around 0 - 5. That's because very little has been recorded, and if you lift you are rewarded with colour noise that people understandably don't like. With with the exmor you haven't recorded much at these levels either, but, as you say, many are quite happy with the grey, toneless image because there is very little colour noise and a regular pattern, which is not as objectionable.


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## GuyF (May 26, 2016)

Depending on what your intended use is for an image, it looks like 1DX2 files can take a fair bit of abuse. Definitely a bit mushy in places but it could prove useful in some areas.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=18015784

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=18016188


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## privatebydesign (May 26, 2016)

Just to put a little context of the absurdity of this area of 'discussion'.

Here is a screenshot of an image I was just working on, I left it full sized so the adjustments and pixel RGB numbers can be seen. This is a straight five stop lift of an exposure that encompassed a wideish DR, the original (the image as shot on the left) has a tiny touch of clipping in the whites and no clipping in the blacks.

The only adjustment applied is a +5 stop on the exposure slider.

The cursor reads a before/after RGB values of 
R: 0.0/77.9 G: 0.0/78.1 B: 3.2/89.2

Are we really arguing about a camera that can do one more stop lift than this 'better'? Who cares!


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## East Wind Photography (May 26, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Just to put a little context of the absurdity of this area of 'discussion'.
> 
> Here is a screenshot of an image I was just working on, I left it full sized so the adjustments and pixel RGB numbers can be seen. This is a straight five stop lift of an exposure that encompassed a wideish DR, the original (the image as shot on the left) has a tiny touch of clipping in the whites and no clipping in the blacks.
> 
> ...



Oh but look at that detail in the window! Some voyer might want to see that kind of detail!


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