D810-DynamicRange.jpg

Ok, so I wanted to share this image. The top one is straight out of the camera and the bottom one is processed in LRCC.

 

For many there is nothing unusual about this image, but I wanted to explain why I think its worth a look.

 

First of all, I took this from a restaurant in Port de Pollenca, Mallorca, last Saturday afternoon on my D810, with highlighted weighted metering, ISO 64, focussed in the centre on the white umbrella canopy.

 

Exposure details: 1/200 sec at f/8.0, ISO 64, 35mm (35.0 mm f/1.8), Manual exposure mode, Highlight Weighted metering.

 

For the OOC image, notice the dark top & bottom of the image.

 

My intention here was to test the D810 sensors fabled dynamic range ability to retain details in the shadow area's, and this is pretty incredible.

 

Here's my LRCC processing:

a) set white balance to 5,500 (OOC value)

b) set white point to +38

c) set black point to +3

d) set highlights to -11

e) set shadows to +1-

f) set exposure to -0.50 (half stop)

g) clarity +21, vibrance +32, saturation +24

h) medium contrast tone curve, plus highlights+4, lights+3, darks-1, shadows-1

i) sharpening 25,1.0, 25,0

j) noise reduction luminance 30,50,0 colour 25,50,50

k) camera calibration adobe standard

l) adjustments using brush to canopy & foreground table +3 exposure, twice, which I make 5.5-stops of detail shadow recovery (2x3-stops = 6 -0.5 (half stop) exposure = 5.5-stops)

 

The only additional change I made to the camera was to set the fine-tune exposure compensation to +1 (6/6), as reviews had previously stated the Nikon highlight weighted metering implementation was conservative, which appears to be the case here too.

Done