ISO 3.200 RAW files have exposure data crushed

[John King]

But it's only just missing a very small tail though.
From this "." to this ",". I let my photos go up to ISO 6,400 myself.

I'm circumspect about the light with ISO 6400, Ross, but if it's needed, it's needed. And I'm glad to have it.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

I'm circumspect about the light with ISO 6400, Ross, but if it's needed, it's needed. And I'm glad to have it.

Yeah, they aren't necessarily great images using ISO6400 (6,400 ), but sometimes it's an image that I wouldn't have got otherwise.
Here's an example using the E-M1 & a slow 12-50 lens at 1/10 sec, ISO 6400.

"That cuddly moment"

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[MorningWalk]

ETTR seems to be even more important when using high ISO. A few weeks ago I made some pictures at night with the Pen F. Because large parts of the background were very dark, the matrix metering upped the exposure. The quality (detail, noise) at ISO 6400 is surprisingly good and the images are perfectly usable. But I don't think I would have had the same success at ISO 3200 with same exposure and correction in post. With my FF camera this is exactly the same: the IQ of underexposed images is disappointing.
With good technique the difference in IQ between MFT and FF is way smaller than what marketing wants us to believe.

 

[Steveinslc]

I can only compare well what I've used a lot. My OM1.3 does suffer significantly at higher ISOs compared to the Pentax K-1 I had, or the 645z I have now. Those are both so good at shadow recovery that I will generally underexpose in high DR situations. It's much easier and better to recover details from the shadows than from blown highlights. Can't quite do the same with the OM1.3 (which is fine, I use that for other things).

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Many country conventions reverse the meaning of "." and "," in numerical notations; it is this way here in Sweden. So the thousands separator is "." giving "3.200" and an aperture ends up being "f/5,6". I am so used to both (being born in a "normal" country and living in a "reversed" country) that I don't even notice it any more.

I actually use the "reversed" notation more often as I have all my devices set to use Swedish numbering, including the ISO8601 "2021-08-12" date format (which is the only date formatting that makes logical sense as it's the only one that sorts correctly either as a number or a string )

I always "felt" that fractions and decimals do "," and high-value numbering has "." ... for dates, it's Day-Month-Year (and Mondays are the first day of the week), though I do catalog my pictures by Month-Day-Year in folders because I get the days to be numerically ascending as well as the months in the year.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Perhaps a couple of before/after examples would help, Ovidiu.

All cameras of all formats have reduced DR as ISO rises.

This also happened (dramatically) with film.

I am trying but now I am finding it difficult to find the ones that have their data compressed enough. Maybe it's not as often as I initially thought that the files have their data compressed or insufficient. I'm trying to find ones that are not severely underexposed but here's one example:

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The histogram data shows the all of teh data is in lower half of the shadow and in the black areas too. So this is quite an extreme situation. When I try to move the shadow or the highlight sliders it will move the entire histogram and the image quality is severly degraded:

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While pushing the exposure slider works significantly better in terms of image quality and balance:

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With some dodge and burn an AI noise reduction it can make the picture usable.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Found one ... they seem to be a bit rare but it may have to do with artificial light as they seem to be indoors and portraits of peeps:

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Lowering the highlights pushes the entire histogram into the shadows and gives the skin tones a muddy tint:

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Pushing the shadows and lowering the highlights to balance the histogram brings some really nargly shadow artefacts:

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And this would be quite a typical situation, indoors, selfies or group or portrait picture, capturing the right moment, pushing the metering and sensor performance.

 

[MorningWalk]

I am trying but now I am finding it difficult to find the ones that have their data compressed enough. Maybe it's not as often as I initially thought that the files have their data compressed or insufficient. I'm trying to find ones that are not severely underexposed but here's one example:
View attachment 903046
The histogram data shows the all of teh data is in lower half of the shadow and in the black areas too. So this is quite an extreme situation. When I try to move the shadow or the highlight sliders it will move the entire histogram and the image quality is severly degraded:

This one illustrates my point: the image is underexposed, so it is hard to get shadow detail by pulling up the exposure in post. This is a characteristic of digital images: there is way less information in the shadows than in the highlights. To get the most out of the sensor, especially at higher ISOs, it is better to expose to the right.

 

[MorningWalk]

I can only compare well what I've used a lot. My OM1.3 does suffer significantly at higher ISOs compared to the Pentax K-1 I had, or the 645z I have now. Those are both so good at shadow recovery that I will generally underexpose in high DR situations. It's much easier and better to recover details from the shadows than from blown highlights. Can't quite do the same with the OM1.3 (which is fine, I use that for other things).

A bigger sensor will always be better. I never used digital MF, but when comparing with my D750 the difference (detail and noise) with MFT is smaller than I initially thought it would be. The D750 files are more flexible for shadow recovery but MFT is not bad either.

Thanks to IBIS for static subjects in low light I get better quality images with my MFT gear than with FF. If I were to shoot fast action in low light FF would be a better option.

 

[doady]

Such extreme underexposure as in the deer photo would hard to fix, even at ISO 200.

Looking at my ISO 3200 fish photos again, I didn't notice any unusual about the behaviours of the shadow/highlight/black/white sliders in Capture One, and the photos were reasonably well-exposed.

I thought the idea of "Exposing to the Right" was about maximizing signal-to-noise across the image, including the midtones and highlights, to increase flexibility in post-processing. The term "Exposing to the Right" also calls attention to how important it is not to overexpose any part a photograph when using a digital camera, because that lost detail will be hard if not impossible to recover. It's a reminder to be more careful not to overexpose as much as anything. It's the amount of highlight detail that is weakness of digital, not the amount of shadow detail.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

I know of ETTR, though I haven't been a big fan of it because whether it's ISO 200 or ISO 6.400 highlights can be clipped very quickly and the loss of information can be quite noticeable, pure white clouds/sky. Shadows are more recoverable at base ISO than they are at ISO 3.200/6.400. At high ISO it's difficult to make a decision of sacrificing one over the other, depending on the level of contrasting light (light coming through foliage or buildings) or if I can use the shadows to emphasize a certain aspect of the image/story, like how dark it really is in the scene for example.

With indoors and especially artificial light I really don't like hotspots on the skin. In more of a documentary capacity I react and try to record for a moment/situation ... I am not a big fan of staging unless on rare moments where I want/expect certain results.

Per larger formats ... as much as I would like to allow myself to desire them I can not really afford them and right now I am actually trying to find a way to downgrade for a lighter and more compact overall package. I am split in between Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV and Panasonic Lumix DC-G100 (where the Pany wins on being actually cheaper and better EVF and Backscreen but then I would juggle Olympus and Panasonic menus and system and no IBIS for a combo with Pany Leica 15mm f 1.7 VS Oly has the Oly advantage as my current system and IBIS but loses on wide-angle starting at 14mm (with the Oly 14-42mm EZ), about 100-200 £ higher price and I don't know how well CD-AF Oly version would play with Panasonic primes).

 

[PakkyT]

I thought the idea of "Exposing to the Right" was about maximizing signal-to-noise across the image, including the midtones and highlights, to increase flexibility in post-processing.

Yes the basic idea is using shutter and aperture flood the sensor with as much light as possible up to but stopping just before clipping the highlights. Only issue with it for many of us is that virtually every photo you take will be overexposed and require adjustments on the computer afterward.

 

[Aristophanes]

I know of ETTR, though I haven't been a big fan of it because whether it's ISO 200 or ISO 6.400 highlights can be clipped very quickly and the loss of information can be quite noticeable, pure white clouds/sky. Shadows are more recoverable at base ISO than they are at ISO 3.200/6.400. At high ISO it's difficult to make a decision of sacrificing one over the other, depending on the level of contrasting light (light coming through foliage or buildings) or if I can use the shadows to emphasize a certain aspect of the image/story, like how dark it really is in the scene for example.

With indoors and especially artificial light I really don't like hotspots on the skin. In more of a documentary capacity I react and try to record for a moment/situation ... I am not a big fan of staging unless on rare moments where I want/expect certain results.

Per larger formats ... as much as I would like to allow myself to desire them I can not really afford them and right now I am actually trying to find a way to downgrade for a lighter and more compact overall package. I am split in between Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV and Panasonic Lumix DC-G100 (where the Pany wins on being actually cheaper and better EVF and Backscreen but then I would juggle Olympus and Panasonic menus and system and no IBIS for a combo with Pany Leica 15mm f 1.7 VS Oly has the Oly advantage as my current system and IBIS but loses on wide-angle starting at 14mm (with the Oly 14-42mm EZ), about 100-200 £ higher price and I don't know how well CD-AF Oly version would play with Panasonic primes).

Just expose properly or use a flash to assist.

Your images at ISO 3200 are muddy because...ISO 3200!

 

[Egregius V]

Could Lightroom's behavior be a bug? Or maybe a limitation in how the range of each tonal adjustment slider is computed?

DxO PhotoLab, which I use, has a different implementation of the Highlights adjustment that does affect midtones by design. Still, I don't recall having problems like this with ISO3200 images.

 

[Machi]

...
ISO 200-1600 on the 20MP sensor is "native". Above that...

I'm not sure about other cameras but E-M1II uses analog amplification up to ISO6400 with mechanical shutter and ISO3200 with electronic shutter.

...The sensor is essentially invariant from ISO 200-1600.

For E-M1II it is not.

You can see from those graphs how E-M1 II's true ISO is shifted 1/3 stop, so the base ISO is actually ISO 250 rather than 200. Kinda annoying.
....

Base ISO is 200.

 

[PakkyT]

For E-M1II it is not.

Right. To the best of my knowledge, Olympus made the change to the new (at the time) ISO standard making ISO 200 the base ISO and then everything higher is still the old simple analog amplification up to a point, then purely digital +EVs after that. Unlike Fujifilm, Sony, and others, Olympus has not yet (to the best of my knowledge) tried any of the ISO tricks with tonal curves and whatnot to get different ISO levels probably most because the Olympus used sensors are NOT invariant like other brands.

 

[John King]

Do not underexpose! Unless deliberate.

Learn how the five different metering modes work on your camera.

 

[John King]

I am trying but now I am finding it difficult to find the ones that have their data compressed enough. Maybe it's not as often as I initially thought that the files have their data compressed or insufficient. I'm trying to find ones that are not severely underexposed but here's one example:
View attachment 903046
The histogram data shows the all of teh data is in lower half of the shadow and in the black areas too. So this is quite an extreme situation. When I try to move the shadow or the highlight sliders it will move the entire histogram and the image quality is severly degraded:
View attachment 903047

While pushing the exposure slider works significantly better in terms of image quality and balance:
View attachment 903048
With some dodge and burn an AI noise reduction it can make the picture usable.

These are all OoC JPEGs. Exposed for what's important, let the rest lie where they fall!

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[PakkyT]

Not that damn cat again!

 

[John King]

Not that damn cat again!

I'm slack about processing and uploading ... .