On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Boris Liberman <[email protected]> wrote: > Hmmm, so a camera with so many bits of RAW can do what then? Discern > 2^so many shades, right?
Exactly. > And the dynamic range is about when it goes > to saturation either to pure black and pure white. Pure white and indistinguishable from noise (not pure black). The noise floor determines the actual dynamic range's low end. > Ok, so tell me > then, the wise people of PDML, is there a way looking at the same > picture shot with K-7 and K-5 to tell them apart? Or better yet, how > do I /see/ that one camera has wider DR than the other and that more > BPS in RAW are more beneficial than less BPS in RAW in real life. And > how all that translates to actual print? The bit depth of the RAW files shows up in subtle gradations of colour and in shadow noise. You get more subtle colour/tone resolution and less shadow noise with a higher bit depth ADC than with less (the shadow noise improvement is due to exactly how ADC's work with linear imaging sensors, you lose luminance resolution at low luminance values. Digital delivers superb resolution of bright tones and poor resolution of dark tones). In the real world, shadow noise is the easiest to see, especially on a camera which can shoot in both 12 and 14 bit modes like many Nikons. More dynamic range allows you to make less trade offs in exposure at shooting time. The more DR you have, the more you can hold detail in both the highlights and the shadows at the same time. The downside is the self-same image will be lower contrast when rendered and you usually have to make those trade offs in post instead. -Adam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
