Do digital cameras "behave" like slide films?

[alexham36]

I had problems getting a god shot of my house in sunny conditions. It has white cladding and this came out too bright and lacking detail. Much better if the picture is taken on a cloudy day. Taking the same shot with an exposure adjustment -2stops improved the picture considerably. There was good detail in the cladding and the rest of the picture was darker.

That is how a transparency film behaves. Is that right or am I stuck with the "old ways"?

Many thanks,

Alex

[beejaybee]

That is how a transparency film behaves. Is that right or am I stuck with the "old ways"?

Ummm, sort of, in fact most digital sensors have rather less latitude than most transparency films and certainly lack the "toe" and "shoulder" of the response curve of analogue media.

What you can do with digital is take two or more bracketed shots, one exposed for the shadows & one for the highlights, and merge them to obtain a final image with more latitude than the sensor can cope with in a single shot. Look up "HDR". But apply sparingly, many HDR shots look unnatural.

[El_Sid]

I've certainly found it good practice to follow the same ‘expose-for-the-highlights’ rule as slide film.

I tend to work mostly in raw and in tricky lighting I find it often helps to set the meter to partial or spot mode and meter from the brightest point then, using exposure lock, add between 1 and 2 stops of positive compensation. Alternatively if working in manual mode I reduce the shutter speed or open the aperture by a similar amount. This is normally enough to keep the highlights as highlights without blowing them out. A check on the histogram will tell me whether the scene is within the cameras dynamic range or not - if the highlight values just reach the right edge and the shadow values just reach the left edge then the scene just about falls within the camera's dynamic range.

If the dark values are bunching up against the left side then the shadows are blocking and the scene is exceeds the camera's range. If you are using a tripod then the simplest answer is to take a further, longer (usually) exposure or exposures and blend them either manually or using an HDR program. However if you don't have a tripod but are working in RAW it's possible to recover surprising amounts of shadow detail in post processing. What I do in these cases is transfer the original highlight exposure (having done any minor tweaks I feel necessary) to Photoshop and save it as a PSD. I then go back to the RAW converter and reprocess the image with increased exposure and transfer/copy the results into the PSD file as a new layer. Depending on the depth of shadow I may do two or three reprocessed versions (e.g. midtones and shadows or midtones and light & heavy shadows) and blend these manually using masks. If you have an HDR option then the various processed versions can also be blended using that just as if they were separate exposures.

One things to be careful about when making these sorts of RAW exposure adjustments is noise. Post processing a RAW file to recover the shadows will generate noise in the same way as boosting the ISO so you need to keep an eye on this and apply noise reduction if needed. Generally I find the best results come from low ISO files as this keeps noise generation to a minimum.

FWIW if you are working in RAW I find some minor blown highlights can also be recovered. If the highlight values are only just starting to bunch up at the right side of the histogram then you have a chance of recovering some of them but if the peaks are starting to get even moderately high then you've had it. I have managed to recover up to 1 stop of over exposure (with small areas) but generally if the highlights have gone more than a half-stop over it’s not usually worth the attempt. Again noise can be an issue here.

[FujiSigmaNolta]

...Or...or...use a Fujifilm S3 or S5 pro in Expanded DR mode these days they are still hard to beat (if they are ever beaten) in that department.

[El_Sid]

Trouble is I have a tendency to take pictures in lighting that'd defeat even a Fuji.......

I was very tempted to buy an S5 when the price got really silly but couldn't truly justify it. Might still buy one used if I find it at a good price though.

Do you reckon there will ever be an S6 Pro or, as it's beginning to look, have Fuji pulled out of the market?....

[Tony_Polson]

Do you reckon there will ever be an S6 Pro or, as it's beginning to look, have Fuji pulled out of the market?....

It's pretty certain that Fuji have pulled out of the market for DSLRs. The killer blow was probably the Nikon D700.

The D700's sensor is not only full frame, it has far better performance at high ISOs than any of the Fuji DSLRs. It also has very good dynamic range, even if it isn't quite as good as that of the Fuji S5.

[Benchmark]

A neutral density grad filter is often the best way to go in bright conditions, but is expensive and cumbersome.

The ND Grad function in Photoshop Raw Image Editor is also very useful.

[cas100uk]

Have you not already given yourself the answer, 'much better on a cloudy day'. Yes there are differences with digital and film but we are talking about photographing in harsh light. The answer is to use the best light, golden hour etc or overcast to avoid blown highlights.