Fuji and Ricoh Technology for Extended Dynamic Range Digicams
default -- Mon, 02/23/2009 - 17:19
I see that dpreview has posted images from the new Fuji camera that offers extended dynamic range and better low light capability. Ricoh seems to have the dynamic range thing too. Will this work? Is Fuji's approach to grouping pixels new, or have we seen that before? Either way, does it work?
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09022304f200exrgallery.asp
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I'm highly skeptical of this new feature.
It most likely works, but since digital negatives already have a wider dynamic and contrast range than prints I don't see an advantage to having greater dynamic range in your digital image.
I used to work with an 8x10 view camera. My negatives and transparencies had a much wider dynamic range than any print media I could commercially obtain. To make full-range black and white prints I had to print on Platinum paper and there was NO WAY to make color prints that captured the full range of my transparencies.
Regardless of the dynamic range of the receptors you still have to "fit" the image into the final display medium.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
What kind of dynamic range do displays have?
By display medium I don't necessarily mean a display.
I'm sure that for many people a computer's LCD is the primary display medium - its contrast and color fidelity depends on how well its been set up. I calibrate my display to match my printer's output.
A printer's dynamic range is limited by the paper used (how bright is the paper's white?) and by the printer's inks.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Sure, but I'm asking how a computer display compares in DR to print on paper?
A computer monitor's native dynamic range is far more akin to a transparency or slide than a print. You can, if you wish, set one up so it has a very wide dynamic range, but it will not translate to a print or to other monitors that are properly calibrated.
The whole point of calibration is standardization so what you see on your monitor will be what others see on their monitors when they look at your images.
The same is true when it comes to making prints. A properly calibrated monitor WILL look very close to what your printer will produce.
The sonic corollary would be a recording engineer who makes a recording on a system where the bass and treble controls on his monitoring system are turned way up. It could sound great on his system but awful on any other one. In order for the recording to translate well he needs to master on a neutral system. The same is true of a photographic image - you need a neutral and accurate monitor to insure that the final version of your image translates well to other viewers.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Well, I need to know how my pix will look on other display devices if I'm sharing my work. If not, or if I can control the display medium, then I want to pick a display medium that does what I want to do, no?
And since we're talking dynamic range, is the bass and treble analogy really right? Since a lot of music is played on car radios, do mastering engineers do their work in an environment with 75db noise floor?
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm trying to understand.
If you need to know how your work will look on other display devices, your photoshop work must be done originally on a calibrated monitor.
If you have no plans to share your work or make prints then a calibrated monitor doesn't matter, but who does that?
Yes, the treble bass analogy is correct. Even for pop music that will never see anything other than MP3 distribution a neutral mastering environment is necessary for optimum clarity on the most number of systems. including mobile ones.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
I think what is throwing me off on the bass/treble analogy is that we're actually saying that in photography we should decrease dynamic range to a standard to allow sharing. That makes sense in one way (how else could you share and know what folks would see), but in another sense it doesn't (you are forced to create images with less DR, and thus less fidelity, than you could).
In audio, you master on the most neutral (capable -- wide dynamic range, wide frequency response, low noise) system possible. If the user has a less neutral system, he/she doesn't hear what you heard. In photography, you "master" on a crippled system. But the user sees what you saw. I can see the merits of both, but they seem different to me.
Ever since the days of the first glass plate view cameras the problem of fitting the dynamic range of negatives onto prints has been with us. The primary reason for using gum prints and platinum prints was the way they compressed the dynamic range of negatives so they would fit onto a print.
Since the purpose of photography is visual communication, it only makes sense to try to make your images as clear and easy view on other people's monitors and when you make a print as possible. This requires some form of standard calibration. On some monitors this may mean a reduction of contrast or dynamic range, but with most monitors the primary issue is color balance not dynamic range.
I believe there's a big difference between a "crippled" system and calibrated one. A large part of the art and craft of photography is working with the materials whether they'd be silver salts or electrons for maximum control and maximum visual clarity. Calibration and standardization of the dynamic range is a necessary tool in this process.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
If I might jump in here a little bit - as another large-format-for-publication shooter from another era. Bill, I'm not sure I'd characterize a decrease in dynamic range of a photograph as being less "high fidelity" to the orginal scene. The real reason for worrying about dynamic range to begin with is, as Steven says, to make the jump from a high dynamic range negative/transparency/digital file to a printed medium with as much fidelity as possible.
If you've ever photographed something knowing that it's going to be printed in a publication, you'll really squeeze the dark to light contrast range to ensure that the entire tonal range of the image can be reproduced on press. Traditionally, that was done by adding light to specific areas of the scene to reduce (not eliminate) the depth of the shadows - which acutally has the effect of rendering the scene more accurately as it opens up the detail in the shadows that would otherwise be lost. Now, with Photoshop, Aperture and the like, this can be manipulated in the computer to a large degree. Does this render an image with less fidelity to the scene than the negative? I'd argue (and possibly lose) that no, it doesn't, since you actually enable the viewer to see details that are in the scene but wouldn't otherwise be rendered.
Just one more point and I'll shut up. Calibrating a monitor has as much, if not more, to do with color accuracy as with dynamic range accuracy.
Just to fill in some additional details, Fuji's Super CCD system is not new, although previous versions lacked some of the flexibility of the new model. I think it's a laudible concept, but one that's seemingly failing to be understood by the wider camera market. It seems that no matter what brands like Fuji and Sigma try to do, people only go for more megapixels and higher ISO.
In fairness, what Fuji is trying to do here has little to do with large format or platinum/palladium prints; it's to get mainstream users back to the dynamic range they used to have with color print film. It's also designed to be free from 'fix it in Photoshop' syndrome, so you can take an image straight out of camera to a lab and get something with a bit more scope than most compacts. Unfortunately, it's a fix for a problem that few people either understand or recognize.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Thanks gentlemen, this is helpful. If I understand this (or am starting to), one advantage of what Fuji and Ricoh are doing is that they are providing cameras that record more DR so that when adjustments are made during processing, you actually have data (highlight and shadow) to work with. In other words, you can't retreive the detail from a blown out highlight. If you can record it, you can compress it down to fit with Steven's calibrated printing system and it will show up (albeit compressed). Am I getting closer?
That's about it, BillS. The Fuji essentially adds extra sub-pixels per full pixel, with the equivalent of a high-pass or low-pass filter in front of them. So you get a sub-pixel (or sub-pixels) specifically to cope with the highlights and one for the shadows, as well as the main pixel info. And that means you have more highlight and shadow detail to play with, however you use it.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com