How to process night images with colorful reflections on water

one thing of advice:

set FRV dynamic of your camera 2 -3 stops smaller.
i have a 12,5 stops DR camera.


This for the high and low masking (OE UE) and there blown near to blown graphics.
@gregor:
one of the images we had as problem for DxO AWB- colorpicker:
blue light as shot

auto modes

SP Absolute AWB 6319/3, Auto natural WB 6403/3 and FRV 5366/-9
link to to original test.

to see the subtle difference between absolute and natural:
video click here
Absolute is a tadd colder then natural.
did some small test with my known images and the FRV’s AWB aka Auto is a nice reference number to dial in DxOPL’s WB tool. (it would be nice if the XMP data of this change (FRV can write the WB in the XMP) is picked up by DxOPL. )

But on DxOMark, it’s a very different story.

First, the camera’s claimed ISO is one full stop too fast

Then, if you take the theoretical ISO of 800, the DR is actually 10.69 stops

But then they do say that 78% of statistics are made up :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Although I would rather take DxOMark’s figures. I’ve certainly found them to be good on my cameras

Certainly.

Interesting that the notes on the bottom of your screenshot refer to their data being derived from DxOMark - and yet it is quite different :laughing:

my own FRV setting is quite simmilair, i got those from FVR support when i asked how to read DxOMark and there prefferences.
But these is also more “reality measurement” i think.
https://photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm
base 9.18 and 6400iso 4.23.
But i fine tuned it:
(what’s camera linearity limit?) it’s active on your setting.

“For more cameras (derived from DxOMark data) see DxOMark Photographic Dynamic Range Chart. However, data on this chart, when available, is considered to be more accurate.”

if i read it correct they say for other not here listed camera’s go to DxOMark.

edit and hmmm interesting:

12,5EV DR
they linking to there own list in that sentence.
https://photonstophotos.net/Charts/DXOPDR.htm
confusing.

somewhere i have warning ring in my head.( i asked i know)
i switched it off and can’t recal why.
something in “hidden correction” i think it’s about using DxOPl and not a Adobe leaning application.

Hmmm. Before now, I had never heard of photonstophotos.

From my real world experience, their numbers are very conservative - they only quote 11.19 EV @ 100 ISO. DxOMark’s numbers give me 14.36 EV @ 100 ISO and I have proven, from my own tests, that this is far more accurate. I can certainly recover amazing amounts of shadow detail with PhotoLab in images that, before processing, appear almost totally black.

found the answer of my question by FRV support:
“DxO is providing numbers for engineering dynamic range. Photographically useful dynamic range is about 3 stops less. I would say Panasonic G80 starts at slightly more than 9 stops (at base ISO), and shaves about 2/3 to 1 stop off it for each extra ISO stop.”

Can’t find the why i didn’t turn the “Use camera linearity limit to detect clipping”
i am foggy about this memory but i am quite sure i decided not to use it.
i think it’s a bout the hidden “gamma” setting aka exposure correction @gregor mentioned.
i think it shows now the DxO “brightness” but as i said foggy about why i decided this not to activate.

Now, that is interesting. Certainly, although I can find detail at 12 stops below measured exposure (14 stops minus 2 stops over-exposure), I would certainly need PL4’s DeepPRIME to make it look anything like detail instead of noise.

Using the ETTR technique, essentially, I fix my right end exposure at +2 stops and then let the shadows fall where they will - I don’t really have much control over that unless I bring in lighting.

To go back to film photography, we would be very grateful to get 14 stops range out of a B&W negative; and that not without using the Zone System to heavily modify the exposure and development times. I was positively gobsmacked when I realised that my D810 could produce such HDR images without taking the time to catch breath :wink:

On my wall - for these two choices, the second version. I’ve got to add though, that it doesn’t look “natural” to me. It looks like what it is, but with my new way of looking at images, it is excellent. That detail was there - and had you brought a gigantic flash with you, this might be what you would get, so in every way I now think of these things, I’d scrap the first (boring) view and go with the second (beautiful) view. A month ago I might have answered differently but I now have a different perspective. This revised photo is completely “real” as I see it now.

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That part sounds logic.
The part of that offset of exposure correction for adobe products.
I like to know what that means. How this effect my use in FRV before DxOPL.
Maybe nothing. As in it is only usefull if you use xmp and let a LR read this.
And all other ignore this.
So it’s a way of preview brightiness control for FRV.

All the previous responses and charts and graphs look interesting, but I have no idea yet what they are, or why I need to understand them.

If I take whatever camera I have, and set it on a tripod, and capture a bracketed night shot (maybe 5 shots with one stop difference between them), this is all I can do. Dynamic range and all the rest are irrelevant - all I can change includes three things - ISO, aperture, and shutter. Maybe a year from now all this will make more sense to me.

One thing has changed from before - I thought I knew what I wanted a photograph to be like, but I was limiting myself, preventing me from creating the “best” image I can from an already captured photo. In very simplistic terms, since it would be a “real” photo if I captured it as-is, and it would also be a “real” photo if I used a flash to light up the scene, I was needlessly limiting my self by not lighting up a scene to show the otherwise hidden details. Before I take any new images, I want to work on the photo of the cranes from last night, and show some of Biscayne Bay surrounding the area I was interested in.

Thanks to you guys, I now have lots more tools to evaluate my captured images, and select the best one for editing. I just need to learn how to use these tools, probably starting with Fast Raw Viewer.

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I picked an image that was slightly brighter, then added adjustments and local adjustments, and set the white balance for one of the lamps. If I was going to post an image for viewing, this is what I now thinks looks good (even though most of the detail I couldn’t see with my bare eyes).

L1001739 | 2020-12-05 | Miami Container Cranes.dng.dop (10.6 KB)

L1001739 | 2020-12-05 | Miami Container Cranes.dng (24.0 MB)

A simple reply is - you will make better pictures and have to do less work in PhotoLab to achieve them.

I’m sorry Mike I thought you were more of a “purist” photographer than that :wink: Night shots very rarely need bracketing, or as it is otherwise known, hit and hope mixed with a bit of “if I take enough shots, one of them’s going to be right”

It’s certainly not all you can do. You can get used to spot metering and that, combined with a knowledge of what your camera is capable of, will give you the perfect (yes, I said perfect) shot every time.

You don’t need a year, you just need a clear, succinct explanation, which is what I will try to give. If you don’t get it first time, we’ll put it another way.

Let’s start with a definition of what dynamic range is in terms that are of interest to the average photographer


Dynamic range is the number of stops between the exposure required to see detail in the deepest shadow and the exposure require to hold detail in the brightest highlights.

To start with, you need to decide on what ISO you want to use - one that is not too slow if you are going to handhold or not too fast that it gives you lots of digital noise.

If the world were a perfect place and everything stood completely still while we took a picture, 100 ISO is absolutely ideal, especially for the kind of landscape shots you seem to favour. But, if necessary, you can increase that speed quite considerably, knowing that PL4’s noise reduction can get rid of that excess noise, even at relatively high ISOs. Unless I am using a tripod, for “wandering around” daytime photography I tend to use 400 ISO.

Apart from generating more noise with higher ISOs, another thing they do is to limit the dynamic range (difference between darkest and lightest parts) that you can record without losing detail.

This chart shows you that, with your camera, you have got as much as 13 stops of range at 100 ISO but, if you were to use 25600 ISO, you would only have 6 stops of range.

Why does this mean?

Well, if you are shooting against the light, you are going to need as much range as you can get, in order to neither block the shadow detail or blow the highlight detail; so you are going to have to keep the ISO as low as possible, given the light available.

However, if you are shooting with the light behind you, or in diffuse light, you could possibly get everything into 6 stops (Fuji Velvia 100 transparency film is only capable of 5 stops and is a firm favourite of large format landscape photographers) so, if necessary, you can raise the ISO and still get everything in.

So, let’s take the kind of shots you have been showing us. The earlier ones were taken against the light but, if you were using a tripod, you could safely use 100 ISO, unless you wanted to avoid subject movement blur. This then allowed you to profit from the maximum dynamic range of your camera and take “HDR” shots in one frame rather than having to bracket and blend two or three pictures afterwards.

Now to discuss what happens when you meter a scene.

All light meters, including those in cameras, try to make the exposure an average 18% grey; not black, not white, not even mid-grey.

When we spot meter this white van


 it comes out a mucky grey.

Now, because we found out that your camera can over-expose by up to 2 stops without losing detail in the highlights, we can tell the camera to deliberately over-expose by those 2 stops


 which then gives us a properly white van with the detail of the panels still visible in the doors.

Which is why we advise you, in the case of high contrast scenes, to spot meter the brightest part and add two stops. On my camera, if I set the exposure compensation dial to +2, the metering will then tell me the right exposure without having to add the 2 stops on afterwards.

Am I going too fast? Let’s take a break there and you can come back with questions if you need to.

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Unfortunately, you have sent 1739 and posted a jpeg of 1738. 1739 is marginally over-exposed I the highlights. Which did you intend to discuss?

[Edit]

I took an executive decision and worked on 1739 since that is what you sent.

All I have done is to lower the Highlights Selective Tone level to -100 and the takes care of the blown highlights in the windows of the wedge-shaped building on the right

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Yesterday I thought I would work with 1738, but this morning the slightly overexposed 1739 seemed like a better choice. All that I’ve done today, has been on 1939.

I originally uploaded all five of my bracketed images, because at that moment I wan’t sure which was “best”.

They are all the same image, but for the bracketing.

Until yesterday, I would have been very happy with what you just did. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I’ve accepted that showing things properly that are too light or too dark is acceptable, so I adjusted the exposure so the trees and boats show up better. The way I felt about this yesterday, what you did is what I originally wanted to do. Thanks to these discussions, my world has “opened up” a little.

Also, the left side of the image detracted from what I wanted to show, but my 90mm lens is the longest I have for my Leica. So I planned on cropping the final image, which I did this morning.

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My definition of “purist” has changed, but forgetting that, to do things properly I need a good light meter. The built-in meter for a Leica M10 probably isn’t adequate, because of how it works. I found my Sekonic meter, but I can’t find the accessory parts - it is set up for incident light. With the proper accessories, it will measure reflected light.

I don’t think I will be able to do what you’re showing me, until I can accurately measure the light. I’ve got lots of other meters, but they’re all dead. Maybe 30 or 40 years is the reason. I should search for a good meter to be able to do what you’re showing me.

As to “hit or miss”, I try to set the camera for what I think is right, but then I bracket “just in case”.

Then too, how would I use a meter on a scene like I just worked on? One goal is not to burn out the brightest things in the photo, but I need a way to know how bright they are, don’t I?

I will start by trying to understand “Dynamic Range”.
From this website: Leica M10: A classic reinvented - DXOMARK

" The Leica M10 achieves an overall DxOMark sensor score of 86 points and ranks as the second-best Leica sensor we’ve tested, just behind the Leica SL (Typ 601) with 88 points. That second-place finish among Leica sensors holds true at the sub-score level, too, with a Portrait (color depth) score of 24.4 bits and a Sports (low-light ISO) score of 2133. The M10 drops into third place for Leica sensors for Landscape (dynamic range), but its score of 13.2 EV is only fractionally behind both the Leica SL (Typ 601) and the Leica M Typ 240."

Time to slowly go through everything you have written, and try to understand


Don’t dismiss it out of hand. I am used to a Konica Minolta Flashmeter VI 1° spot meter. It is the bees knees and I was quite dismissive of trying to use the spot metering on my Nikon D810.

All I can say is to set your camera to spot mode and see how much movement from a small area of light it takes to change the reading. You may be surprised at how well it does. Unfortunately, for the kind of measuring required for ETTR, you really need a spot meter and, if you are not willing to settle for what is in your camera, it could well cost you around $500 to get a decent one, even secondhand.

Try using the spot mode on your camera and measure the lights in the wedge-shaped building, then “over-expose” by 2 stops.If we are right about your sensor coping with +2 stops, you will not burn out the highlights, simply place them where they should be to make them white instead of 18% grey. If they are a bit too bright, simply dial back the over-exposure to 1⅔ stops.

Try not to get into too many technical side tracks :hugs: