Which camera has the best dynamic range?

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:40:55 -0400, "Bob Donahue" wrote:
: I take a lot of pictures at car shows. The digital cameras I've had to date,
: have trouble rendering white cars in direct sunlight. You can't see the
: curves of the body panels, they come out pure white with no shading! Cars
: that are not white come out beautifully. I'm in the market for a new "point
: and shoot" camera. I've narrowed my choice down to the Fujifilm FinePix
: F100fd or the Nikon CoolPix 610. Both of these models are advertised as
: having special "dynamic range" modes. Which one would be my best bet for
: avoiding washed out highlights?

You're describing overexposure, and that can occur from using the wrong
metering mode. In Canon parlance the standard mode is "evaluative", and it
measures the average brightness of the entire image. If the intended subject
is much brighter or dimmer than the rest of the frame, you'll get overexposure
or underexposure, respectively. Try using "centerweighted average" metering
(again Canon terminology, YMMV) instead, and capture the measurement with the
subject in the center of the frame.

Some DSLrs (the better Canons, for example) will let you bias the metering to
a selected one of its autofocus points, but it doesn't sound as though the
camera you're using is that sophisticated. If you actually are using a
high-end camera, check your manual for relevant functionality.

It's conceivable that your camera just has a crappy metering algorithm.
Remember that as the camera sees it, white is just a combination of red,
green, and blue and that many objects reflect only one or two of those colors.
If all the metering algorithm does is separately average the red, green, and
blue content of the image and add the numbers together, it's not taking into
account the fact that a significant amount of the measured intensity falls in
the same part of the picture (the white object). In such a case, you *have* to
limit the measurement to the intended subject or (as others have suggested)
change the exposure compensation manually.

Bob

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:11:29 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

It does not concern me that we disagree, and am happy to stand my ground
on any technical argument, and to learn from others who know more.

If only that was true. You gave no technical arguments based on
facts or observations, only assumption based opinions that I
demonstrated were false. Instead of trying to defend your very weak
arguments, or show why mine might have been mistaken, you choose the
"see no evil, hear no evil" lack of concern and happily stand your
ground.


However, many aspects of image quality are subjective, and there will
never be 100% agreement. You see similar disagreements in audio as well -
those who prefer the "vinyl" sound.

I'm well aware of those disagreements, and probably share your
opinions here as opposed to those with "golden ears" that never seem
to be able to convincingly pass blind A/B tests. I actually recall
(though not many specifics, such as the magazine or the reviewer's
name) that many years ago a critic was taken to task when his
hyperbolically glowing review of some very expensive audio gear was
later shown that it was outperformed by some very modest equipment.
His defense was that he never actually provided distortion figures
or other measured data, but only said that the high end gear had
something like, IIRC, a luxurious, liquid golden sound.

Your mistake here is that the reviews I referenced did not provide
subjective opinions. The did their own tests and showed the
results. Not in quite the detail DPReview is known for (which
hasn't yet tested either of the cameras the OP asked about), but
certainly much more o




Personally, I tend to trust something less if it appears to be marketing
driven, rather than if it is engineering driven, and hence I feel that one
should be wary of any small-sensor camera which offers ISO 12800, whoever
manufacturers it.

The OP should check the results for themselves, and judge whether that are
acceptable. I do like the idea behind the Fuji dual-sensor CCD, and If
the results at lower ISOs offer what is needed, then the camera may be an
excellent tool for the OP's job.

Bob Donahue wrote:
I take a lot of pictures at car shows. The digital cameras I've had to date,
have trouble rendering white cars in direct sunlight. You can't see the
curves of the body panels, they come out pure white with no shading! Cars
that are not white come out beautifully. I'm in the market for a new "point
and shoot" camera. I've narrowed my choice down to the Fujifilm FinePix
F100fd or the Nikon CoolPix 610. Both of these models are advertised as
having special "dynamic range" modes. Which one would be my best bet for
avoiding washed out highlights?

That Fuji camera does not employ the high DR sensors of Fujifilm fame
(aka Super CCD SR II and similar).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_CCD

The SR types have an additional low sensitivity sensor for highlights.

For example, the Fuji S3/S5 have extended dynamic range on top by using
these sensors.

Most digital cameras top out at about 2 stops brighter than middle grey.

The Fuji S3/5 top out an additional 2 stops (~) higher. So you conserve
the same shadow detail while not blowing out the high end.

These cameras take most Nikon lenses.

If you shoot still subjects, you can always shoot two shots from a
tripod at a couple stops apart and then merge them later.

Note of art: if you are concerned enough to want to capture the subtle
curves of a white car in bright sunlight, then it seems to make sense
that you get the right camera. To me that would be the Fujifilm S3|S5.
Good news is you can find a lot of Nikon lenses (used or new) for it.

--
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-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:11:29 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

Rats! This is a continuation of the prematurely posted reply that
this laptop's keyboard has a tendency to produce . . .

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:11:29 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

It does not concern me that we disagree, and am happy to stand my ground
on any technical argument, and to learn from others who know more.

If only that was true. You gave no technical arguments based on
facts or observations, only assumption based opinions that I
demonstrated were false. Instead of trying to defend your very weak
arguments, or show why mine might have been mistaken, you choose the
"see no evil, hear no evil" lack of concern and happily stand your
ground.


However, many aspects of image quality are subjective, and there will
never be 100% agreement. You see similar disagreements in audio as well -
those who prefer the "vinyl" sound.

I'm well aware of those disagreements, and probably share your
opinions here as opposed to those with "golden ears" that never seem
to be able to convincingly pass blind A/B tests. I actually recall
(though not many specifics, such as the magazine or the reviewer's
name) that many years ago a critic was taken to task when his
hyperbolically glowing review of some very expensive audio gear was
later shown that it was outperformed by some very modest equipment.
His defense was that he never actually provided distortion figures
or other measured data, but only said that the high end gear had
something like, IIRC, a luxurious, liquid golden sound.

Your mistake here is that the reviews I referenced did not provide
subjective opinions. The did their own tests and showed the
results. Not in quite the detail DPReview is known for (which
hasn't yet tested either of the cameras the OP asked about), but
certainly with far more objectivity than stating that due to an
implausible high ISO mode, neither the camera's quality nor the
manufacturer could be trusted. As I said, Panasonic (and others)
are also marketing driven and their cameras have high ISO capability
that is far worse than what Fuji delivers, yet you have an
extraordinary fondness for most products Panasonic.


Personally, I tend to trust something less if it appears to be marketing
driven, rather than if it is engineering driven, and hence I feel that one
should be wary of any small-sensor camera which offers ISO 12800, whoever
manufacturers it.

You're just choosing a figure that you don't want to believe and
using it to tar an entire line of cameras. Nobody has said that the
results at ISO 12,800 are fabulous, just usable as a last resort to
get images that other cameras would have to pass on.



The OP should check the results for themselves, and judge whether that are
acceptable. I do like the idea behind the Fuji dual-sensor CCD, and If
the results at lower ISOs offer what is needed, then the camera may be an
excellent tool for the OP's job.

But you did everything you could to make sure that they should
share your opinion that the camera and other Fuji products can't
really be trusted. As usual, when your absurd statements are
pointed out, rather than apologize for hasty ill founded statements,
you ignore that you ever made them and hide behind reasonable
sounding platitudes that you are likely to soon abandon. To recap.:

Does the F100fd offer 12MP at ISO 12,800? If so, I would expect the
results to be completely unusable, and hence I would have considerable
reduced trust in a camera (or should it be the company?), which has
unusable settings?

Your expectations are wrong. ISO 12,800 clearly isn't going to be
used by anyone to produce anything approaching gallery quality
images. But that's NOT what very high ISO shots from ANY camera are
used for. For use in extremely low light, it will produce small
4"x6" snapshots of usable, if not good quality. Based on your own
statements, the failure to back them up, and the way you continue to
ignore points that you can't defend, *everyone* in these newsgroups
should have much less trust in your opinions than in manufacturer's
marketing hype, that is rarely if ever as off base as your opinions.
This is truly sad, as I'm quite sure that you, unlike some others
here, really know better.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:52:19 -0400, Alan Browne wrote:

That Fuji camera does not employ the high DR sensors of Fujifilm fame
(aka Super CCD SR II and similar).

True, but that doesn't mean that if doesn't offer DR. It does,
but it's not based on the CCD sensor. The expanded DR mode also
isn't usable at ISO 800 and above.


Note of art: if you are concerned enough to want to capture the subtle
curves of a white car in bright sunlight, then it seems to make sense
that you get the right camera. To me that would be the Fujifilm S3|S5.
Good news is you can find a lot of Nikon lenses (used or new) for it.

The bad news is that it's going to require a much more expensive
camera and lenses, when all that may be needed is to use exposure
compensation on the existing P&S camera.

David J Taylor wrote:
ray wrote:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:40:55 -0400, Bob Donahue wrote:

I take a lot of pictures at car shows. The digital cameras I've had
to date, have trouble rendering white cars in direct sunlight. You
can't see the curves of the body panels, they come out pure white
with no shading! Cars that are not white come out beautifully. I'm
in the market for a new "point and shoot" camera. I've narrowed my
choice down to the Fujifilm FinePix F100fd or the Nikon CoolPix 610.
Both of these models are advertised as having special "dynamic
range" modes. Which one would be my best bet for avoiding washed out
highlights?
If you shoot jpeg, you have 8 bits of dynamic range (in each RGB
component) - that's it - because that's all the camera's jpeg format
will support. If you shoot raw you'll have 12 bits or more. The
discontinued Kodak P series EVF long zooms will shoot raw as well as
jpeg or tiff. You can frequently find them on Kodak's online store at
great prices.

Ray, you are mistaken here. If anything, JPEG actually offers the greater
dynamic range because it uses non-linear gamma-corrected encoding, as
opposed to the linear coding of RAW. What JPEG lacks, however, is
precision of representing light levels, plus ths "loss" due to compression
(in most JPEGs).

RAW files can be converted to a viewable format by non-linear or linear,
gamma corrected, or not, depending on the software and settings of the
user.

Saying JPEGs have more dynamic range is simply wrong.

--
john mcwilliams

John McWilliams wrote:
[]
RAW files can be converted to a viewable format by non-linear or
linear, gamma corrected, or not, depending on the software and
settings of the user.

Saying JPEGs have more dynamic range is simply wrong.

To clarify, John, I was talking about the JPEG files which come straight
from the camera, not those from a RAW to JPEG conversion.

Given the class of camera under consideration (Fuji F100fd and Nikon
Coolpix 610), would you like to name one which uses a linear rather than a
gamma corrected representation in the JPEG? I would be very surprised if
any did.

David

ASAAR wrote:
On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:11:29 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

Rats! This is a continuation of the prematurely posted reply that
this laptop's keyboard has a tendency to produce . . .

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:11:29 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

It does not concern me that we disagree, and am happy to stand my
ground on any technical argument, and to learn from others who know
more.

If only that was true. You gave no technical arguments based on
facts or observations, only assumption based opinions that I
demonstrated were false. Instead of trying to defend your very weak
arguments, or show why mine might have been mistaken, you choose the
"see no evil, hear no evil" lack of concern and happily stand your
ground.


However, many aspects of image quality are subjective, and there will
never be 100% agreement. You see similar disagreements in audio as
well - those who prefer the "vinyl" sound.

I'm well aware of those disagreements, and probably share your
opinions here as opposed to those with "golden ears" that never seem
to be able to convincingly pass blind A/B tests. I actually recall
(though not many specifics, such as the magazine or the reviewer's
name) that many years ago a critic was taken to task when his
hyperbolically glowing review of some very expensive audio gear was
later shown that it was outperformed by some very modest equipment.
His defense was that he never actually provided distortion figures
or other measured data, but only said that the high end gear had
something like, IIRC, a luxurious, liquid golden sound.

Your mistake here is that the reviews I referenced did not provide
subjective opinions. The did their own tests and showed the
results. Not in quite the detail DPReview is known for (which
hasn't yet tested either of the cameras the OP asked about), but
certainly with far more objectivity than stating that due to an
implausible high ISO mode, neither the camera's quality nor the
manufacturer could be trusted. As I said, Panasonic (and others)
are also marketing driven and their cameras have high ISO capability
that is far worse than what Fuji delivers, yet you have an
extraordinary fondness for most products Panasonic.


Personally, I tend to trust something less if it appears to be
marketing driven, rather than if it is engineering driven, and hence
I feel that one should be wary of any small-sensor camera which
offers ISO 12800, whoever manufacturers it.

You're just choosing a figure that you don't want to believe and
using it to tar an entire line of cameras. Nobody has said that the
results at ISO 12,800 are fabulous, just usable as a last resort to
get images that other cameras would have to pass on.



The OP should check the results for themselves, and judge whether
that are acceptable. I do like the idea behind the Fuji dual-sensor
CCD, and If the results at lower ISOs offer what is needed, then the
camera may be an excellent tool for the OP's job.

But you did everything you could to make sure that they should
share your opinion that the camera and other Fuji products can't
really be trusted. As usual, when your absurd statements are
pointed out, rather than apologize for hasty ill founded statements,
you ignore that you ever made them and hide behind reasonable
sounding platitudes that you are likely to soon abandon. To recap.:

Does the F100fd offer 12MP at ISO 12,800? If so, I would expect the
results to be completely unusable, and hence I would have
considerable reduced trust in a camera (or should it be the
company?), which has unusable settings?

Your expectations are wrong. ISO 12,800 clearly isn't going to be
used by anyone to produce anything approaching gallery quality
images. But that's NOT what very high ISO shots from ANY camera are
used for. For use in extremely low light, it will produce small
4"x6" snapshots of usable, if not good quality. Based on your own
statements, the failure to back them up, and the way you continue to
ignore points that you can't defend, *everyone* in these newsgroups
should have much less trust in your opinions than in manufacturer's
marketing hype, that is rarely if ever as off base as your opinions.
This is truly sad, as I'm quite sure that you, unlike some others
here, really know better.

ASAAR, if you have some specific technical points, related to the OP's
desire for a high dynamic range, I will happily discuss them with you.

If you feel I have not backed up my opinions sufficiently, I will try and
expand or explain.

David

David J Taylor wrote:
ray wrote:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:40:55 -0400, Bob Donahue wrote:

I take a lot of pictures at car shows. The digital cameras I've had
to date, have trouble rendering white cars in direct sunlight. You
can't see the curves of the body panels, they come out pure white
with no shading! Cars that are not white come out beautifully. I'm
in the market for a new "point and shoot" camera. I've narrowed my
choice down to the Fujifilm FinePix F100fd or the Nikon CoolPix 610.
Both of these models are advertised as having special "dynamic
range" modes. Which one would be my best bet for avoiding washed out
highlights?
If you shoot jpeg, you have 8 bits of dynamic range (in each RGB
component) - that's it - because that's all the camera's jpeg format
will support. If you shoot raw you'll have 12 bits or more. The
discontinued Kodak P series EVF long zooms will shoot raw as well as
jpeg or tiff. You can frequently find them on Kodak's online store at
great prices.

Ray, you are mistaken here. If anything, JPEG actually offers the greater
dynamic range because it uses non-linear gamma-corrected encoding, as
opposed to the linear coding of RAW. What JPEG lacks, however, is
precision of representing light levels, plus ths "loss" due to compression
(in most JPEGs).

JPG's 8 bits/color is compressed DR, not more DR. The 'loss' is in
graduation 'tween colors. JPG cannot contain an expression of more
information than the original raw, compressed or otherwise.

The key point is that in-camera JPG leaves you with much less in terms
of options than post-processed raw.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:20:34 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

If you feel I have not backed up my opinions sufficiently, I will try and
expand or explain.

No, I don't believe that you will. You have only to examine the
quotes in your own replies to see the issues you've avoided
addressing. That goes for this latest reply of yours. You've had
many opportunities to expand or explain, but it's not even a matter
of backing up your opinions sufficiently. You have yet to make a
reasonable start. It means nothing to you to have me repeatedly say
that Fuji doesn't provide full resolution 12MP shots at its highest
ISOs, and Fuji makes this clear on their website, in their catalogs
and in their manuals. You continue to state that you wouldn't trust
a company that offers those high ISOs with 12mp shots, when even the
most clueless dummy knows by now that Fuji doesn't and has never
offered that in any of their cameras. You're quick to see insults
before they materialize, yet you don't mind tarnishing your own
reputation with what now can only be described as your own
incorrigible behavior, which continues year after year. You can
only play "rope-a-dope" for so long before everyone catches on.