stalker Posted April 5, 2011 Share #1 Posted April 5, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I've been using M9 for a year now and my main concern is with the dynamic range. I experience clipping problems on many shooting situations. My experience tells me that M9 has a dynamic range of roughly 5.5 stops. M9 is my only digital camera so I cannot compare with other cameras but its inability to perform in many situations really concern me. Even to the point of switching back to film. What is your experience with M9 and with other cameras. How do you deal with the problem. Thank you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted April 5, 2011 Posted April 5, 2011 Hi stalker, Take a look here Dynamic range of M9. Are you happy? . I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
andybarton Posted April 5, 2011 Share #2 Posted April 5, 2011 I thought the dynamic range was at least double that. Can you tell us what settings you have your camera set to? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanhulsenbeek Posted April 5, 2011 Share #3 Posted April 5, 2011 Erwin Puts: M9, part 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted April 5, 2011 Share #4 Posted April 5, 2011 My experience tells me that M9 has a dynamic range of roughly 5.5 stops. According to DXO’s measurements the dynamic range is 11.63 EV at ISO 160 and 7.62 EV at ISO 2500. That seems to be about right. How did you arrive at that 5.5 EV figure, I wonder? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalker Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted April 5, 2011 I shoot DNG uncompressed at ISO 160. I made a test shot composed of cloudy sky and shaded underside of the roof of a house at f.16. The sky only exposure produced a shutter speed of 1/250 whereas the shaded underside of the roof required a shutter speed of 1/12. When i recomposed so that half the frame is filled with the sky and half is filled with the shaded wall and examined the histogram both highlights and shadows were about to clip. This may be a lousy test but my clipping problem is real. I read the Erwin Puts review before. He says that the dynamic range of M9 is 7 stops. That info does not answer my inquiry. Are you happy with the dynamic range of M9 and how do you deal with it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted April 5, 2011 Share #6 Posted April 5, 2011 For practical use (not testing or DXO etc) I find the range to be very similar to may higher end canon gear. Generally I consider 8 stops my useable range (through shooting, not testing) where middle grey is at 5. So I consider 3 stops above and 4 stops below useable although 1 and 8 are no detail black and white respectively. I find in raw that the canon gear has much more leeway in the highlights and I will expose to the right with almost gay abandon! The M9 carries SO much detail in the lower-mid and shadow tones, and is reletively poor in saving highlight detail that I'll er on a darker exposure and pul them up in post. Honestly I'm still simply amazed at the quality of those pulled up tones - there's just so much detail and information there. Just my from the hip comparison. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlesphoto99 Posted April 5, 2011 Share #7 Posted April 5, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Yep, dynamic range is fine. But like any camera, film or digital, you will need to do some post for extreme situations as you describe - the camera can't differentiate automatically between two extreme lighting scenes in one image and dodge and burn. You have to get your hands dirty for that one. With the M9 best to expose for the highlights and then bring out the shadows in post - you will be amazed how much detail there is, and you will then get your full dynamic range. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted April 5, 2011 Share #8 Posted April 5, 2011 Yes I'm happy with the dynamic range and don't often feel I need to 'deal with it' other than by taking care with exposure settings. Its not the sort of dynamic range where you can be carefree with exposure, but I've never felt the shadows let me down if I expose to keep the highlights in check, which is what I would do with most cameras. If I'm out and about doing landscape photography I would usually make a belt and braces set of bracketed exposures to make sure I can blend at least two if the dynamic range was very high in the scene. But again, I've not yet found a camera that wouldn't benefit from the same practice. But making exposures in .dng enables the maximum to be screwed out of the dynamic range, which is why ACR is usually all I need with a single exposure. So no, I'm not concerned, I accept it would be great if DR was better, but life can be a whole wish list of unhappiness unless you just get on with it and not blame the tools. Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblitz Posted April 5, 2011 Share #9 Posted April 5, 2011 +1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblitz Posted April 5, 2011 Share #10 Posted April 5, 2011 that was +1 to charlesphoto 99 -- it is exactly how i shoot when faced with extreme opposites in lighting conditions. in other words, when chimping i don't worry about what's underexposed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted April 5, 2011 Share #11 Posted April 5, 2011 I'm very satisfied with the DR of the M9. Would I like more? Well, let's just say I'd like as much latitude at ISO 2000 as I have at ISO 160 But that's not to say the M9 isn't perfectly workable as is... it still produces more DR than I can reasonably print. I do think you need to work from the RAW files, however, and know what you're doing in exposure and in post. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the histogram on the camera is measuring the resulting LCD JPEG as a guideline for the shot and really doesn't show the M9's capability in terms of DR. With a C1 workflow, which is all I'm really qualified to speak to, it has just about as much practical DR as my Nikon D3 at lower ISOs. At higher ISOs (1600 and above), the shadows drop off between 1 and 2 stops, practically speaking, from the D3. That might not be the absolute noise floor of either camera, but I don't like the look of the D3 files above ISO 2500 usually anyway Of course, it's still more forgiving at ISO 2000 than the M9 (though the M9 seems to be more light sensitive... so there's that too). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gravastar Posted April 5, 2011 Share #12 Posted April 5, 2011 You cannot use the histogram to estimate dynamic range. Experience shows that when the highlights are clipping in the histogram much if not all highlight detail is recoverable during RAW development. The same applies to shadow detail. The histogram is very conservative. Bob. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Shimwell Posted April 5, 2011 Share #13 Posted April 5, 2011 For practical use (not testing or DXO etc) I find the range to be very similar to may higher end canon gear. Generally I consider 8 stops my useable range (through shooting, not testing) where middle grey is at 5. So I consider 3 stops above and 4 stops below useable although 1 and 8 are no detail black and white respectively. I find in raw that the canon gear has much more leeway in the highlights and I will expose to the right with almost gay abandon! The M9 carries SO much detail in the lower-mid and shadow tones, and is reletively poor in saving highlight detail that I'll er on a darker exposure and pul them up in post. Honestly I'm still simply amazed at the quality of those pulled up tones - there's just so much detail and information there. Just my from the hip comparison. I agree at base iso the M9 has very similar dynamic range to a 1Ds3. At high iso it's a different story and the Canon gets ahead. A significant difference is in how they expose though. The Canon seems to be more conservative and has about half a stop more highlight headroom over it's 'middle grey'. The Leica has less highlight room, but has similar or slightly better shadows at 160. In practical terms - you can recover more apparently clipped highlights from the Canon file than the Leica file (basing clipping estimation on the camera histogram and clipping indication), but there is usually a lot of detail in the sahdows that appear black on the Leica lcd (also true for the Canon of course.) MIke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Washington Posted April 6, 2011 Share #14 Posted April 6, 2011 Quite honestly, I have never given it any thought. What I get seems ok to me….. in an extreme situation I’d do HDR. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gib_robinson Posted April 6, 2011 Share #15 Posted April 6, 2011 I often photograph in situations where neither film nor digital have sufficient dynamic range. If I want good detail in both the sky and in shadows, especially early in the morning, I will need 3-5 exposures. Would I like a digital camera that can capture a dynamic range of twelve stops? Absolutely. Blending multiple exposures is not an ideal solution. Do I expect that to happen any time soon. No. --Gib Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Your Old Dog Posted April 6, 2011 Share #16 Posted April 6, 2011 I am very comfortable with the dynamic range of my M9. I seem to do better with the M9 then I ever did with my other Nikon gear. Post processing seems to take care of all my problems or issues for me. I've never expected a fully proper and finished image out of any camera, film or digital till it's had some post done to it. Only my imagination shoots like I want! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
t024484 Posted April 6, 2011 Share #17 Posted April 6, 2011 Answer to the OP is, yes I am very happy with the dynamic range.. Dynamic range is the ratio between the largest recordable signal and the internally generated noise, which is for the M9 more than11 stops at ISO 160 and above 7 stops for ISO 640. But since you still want a decent S/N ratio in the darker parts, you should in practice stay some 2,5 stops above the camera's internal noise level. Therefore the usable dynamic range is more than 7 stops at ISO 160, and more than 5,5 stops at ISO 640. Because the relation between S/N and Dynamic Range is non lineair, you cannot simply deduct the 2,5 stops from the full dynamic range. Hans Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Negative Posted April 6, 2011 Share #18 Posted April 6, 2011 I'm always pleasantly surprised at what I'm able to tease out of an M8/M9 DNG (I shoot only DNG, not JPEG). With proper exposure the DR seems quite respectable, and even if you blow it - you can do quite a lot to recover (or extend the DR) during import. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1JB Posted April 6, 2011 Share #19 Posted April 6, 2011 I am more than happy with the DR on my M9. It's significantly better then my 1DMKIII. I find I have to try to get any clipping in the highlights and it is quite easy to pull 1-2 stops out fo the dark areas in pp with properly exposed highlights. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nafpie Posted April 6, 2011 Share #20 Posted April 6, 2011 I am more than happy with the DR on my M9. It's significantly better then my 1DMKIII. Definitively no. At ISO.160, both my be at the same level when it comes to dynamic range. At higher ISO values, the Canon is significantly better (~0.5 EV at ISO.400 up to more than 1 EV at ISO.1000). Stefan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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