Exercise 9: Scene Dynamic Range

The instructions for this task were to shoot five differently lit scenes, ensuring one had high dynamic range and another with low dynamic range, and within each find and measure the brightest and the darkest areas.

Hazy Cloud

This image has low dynamic range, the histogram values are clumped together in the middle of the graph. The shutter speeds ranged from 1/250 - 1/25. The dynamic range for this scene is 3.3 stops.

Open Shade

The lightest area metered at 1/60 the darkest at 1/13. The dynamic range for this scene is 2.3 stops.

Overcast Cloudy

The lightest area metered at 1/40 and the darkest 1/4. The dynamic range of this scene is 3.3 stops.

Sunlight

The brightest area metered at 1/1000 and the darkest at 1/40. The dynamic range for this scene is 4.6 stops.

Indoor Mixed Light

This image has a high dynamic range, the values on the histogram stretch from one end of the axis to the other. The brightest area metered at 1/1250 and the darkest at "0.4. The dynamic range for this scene is 8.3 stops which is not far from the results I found online for my camera.

Having shot five different scenes under different lighting conditions and calculating the dynamic range for each I have come to the conclusion that my camera has the dynamic range to cope with most conditions. Any clipping could be recovered in ACR and in the deep shadows when enlarged there was no discernable noise. Special attention should be taken mainly when the scene is of a very high dynamic range with a large amount of bright or reflective areas, very deep shadow or a higher ISO which will begin to introduce noise.