Dynamic Range & Stops

[@TonyAndChelsea]

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[@BartSchuck]

This is the best well-illustrated / animated and narrated video of dynamic range I've ever seen. Great job.

[@JohnCillian]

Its good seeing tony say all that without reading a teleprompter like others. He knows his stuff by heart :)

[@DaneWallace1]

Hi Tony. You are one of the only photographers that I truly enjoy watching. Your humble disposition is so refreshing! A huge thanks.

[@robertpatashny7473]

Thanks for the brief segment on dynamic range. When you did in 5 minutes was more informative than some videos that take 30 minutes!

[@xinyucao5550]

I watched this video months ago and didn't really understand it, but now, after some practice and becoming more familiar with basic photography theories and skills, I find this video is so informative and helpful. You solve multiple questions that I've been confused about for years. Thank you so much! You are doing such a great job!

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Thanks!

[@bird271828]

Tony, you should have been my college professor. Thank you for your videos :-)

[@TonyAndChelsea]

bird271828 Thanks, and you're welcome!

[@johnlowell2171]

Your series are exactly what I was looking for. Am new to digital, but with new micro 4/3 camera, did not understand the range of new technical controls to think about. This specific episode covered how to utilize that darn histogram, at a level I can understand. Tks to you both for the excellent work and willingness to share.

[@WilliamSchreiner]

Hey. I'm getting into video/photography in order to make some videos regarding the foster care system in the US in order to help a non profit with some fundraising. I am starting from zero knowledge. Currently looking at Ursa 4k vs. 4.6K and the reviews/differences are for people with more experience than myself. THEN...I saw your video. I was just thinking, I need a tutor. Somebody that is a good teacher. I think you are a good teacher. Just wanted to thank you for making this great video and spending the time to envelop your viewer (that's I). You are/seem to be a natural teacher, which is a gift. So thanks for teaching/helping me and keep on truckin'. You seem wiser and more patient and more understanding than the other children in the sand box. Best, Bill

[@smaakjeks]

Although I personally have a pretty good handle on dynamic range, I still loved this video and found it valuable. That extra effort in showing (and not just telling) really makes a difference. Great job!

[@afiwubh4go9aiosugb]

I recently bought your book on Amazon and after just reading a few pages of it, It has improved my skills dramatically! Money well spent! Thank you for writing the book!

[@lefthandright01]

The information, and presentation of this tutorial in real time is super classy. This is immensely helpful to see how changing information, what it did to the image in real time.

[@PhotoReddy]

Thank you Tony - I need to work on paying more attention to the histogram while shooting.

[@PlNKUHOSHI]

This is such a great way to explain dynamic range, I tried to explain it to my friends who aren't into photography, and now I just show them your video. :D

[@ximchix]

Just perfectly explained! Haven't seen such a nice, short and understandable video in a long time. Keep up these good videos and especially don't leave out all these details that are barely mentioned in other articles.

[@白海塔]

Nice video, a lot of info in just 5 minutes! (and 10 seconds). The amount of detail that is possible to recover in post processing from a Raw file never ceases to amaze me.

[@WestbrookAds]

Tony, you're the best when it comes to teaching photography. In fact - you're the first, second and third best. All the other guys will have to fight for fourth place. Thanks for always sharing such awesome information!

[@PostColorGear]

Either exposure compensation for adjusting brighness, or adjusting the items in the exposure triangle in manual mode to get the same results. This is what I usually do when I head out. If my subject (house, person, animal) is underexposed, I usually bump up the iso if I have my aperture and shutter already set.

[@frankcastellano2476]

Thanks Guys from Australia. That was so well explained in a visual way that after seeing so many other videos on this subject I can now say that I actually understand Dynamic Range and how to deal with it. Thanks again

[@Cameraville]

Great video. Reading the histogram is the very first thing I teach to others when they seek my advice [on photography]. The most valuable tool on paper & out in the field when it's too bright to see the damn screen.

[@tyresemyrie7659]

Thank you for explaining this Dynamic Range & Stops. I really appreciate your tutorials thank you for being so generous with your photography knowledge.

[@RWJonesAIC]

Tony, just a great video. Very easy to follow, to the point, and very informative. I really like how you alter the images as you are speaking. That makes these packed with useful information and so understandable. Please keep up the great work and C Ya Thursdays.

[@robertpaxton9251]

Very well done Tony! Perfect illustrations and to the point.

[@NikhilYerasi]

These videos are very useful! Quick, well-produced, informative - what more could one ask for? Thanks Tony!

[@Lumencraft-]

Great info thank you. I would be VERY interested in a video like this about filming sunsets. I'd really like to be able to do it without overlaying multiple images. I'm shooting on a 5DII..

[@Mike0193Azul]

Very helpful diagrams thank you 💚

[@natascorpus666]

ur pretty much the coolest tony...took you're suggestion and got the Peak Design Slide Camera Sling/Neck and Shoulder Strap. its so comfortable for long periods.

[@cinemenico]

natascorpus666 and till the end of june availlable with 20% discount using ' dads20 '. ;) I purchased the Leash a couple of months ago. Didn't really like the strap, so then go the anchor links for my own strap of choice and then some additional anchors as well as I have a bunch of cameras.

[@REGNARTS00]

Best explanation so far. Great job Tony.

[@RyanH0809]

Perfect. I admit, that being basically self taught, I often ignore the histogram while shooting. Tips on how to use the histogram to my advantage while shooting are very helpful. Thank you!

[@linsnowx]

Even though I understand all the concepts, the way you explain them is such a joy to watch/listen. To me it's like hearing one of my favorite stories told by different people. Thanks for the effort! :)

[@4thNebula]

Nice concise and clear explanation. I just got done doing a landscape competition in oil painting and am now looking at my photos to see how well they compare to my paintings. Was using Canon 70D with Tamron 16-300 VC and Sony a6000 with Sony 35mm f1.8 OSS. Far from what I saw with my eyes. Sure would like to do a lot better with the photos since I sometimes paint from photo info. What would be the best Camera lens combo for landscapes bar none?

[@borisovodenko1180]

This is such a wonderful explanation of a complex subject.

[@CharlesLi1]

Wow that was explained so well. And I thought I understood it all already but this solidified it! Thank you Tony Northrup

[@WillPG12]

I really appreciate the quality of the videos you upload, anyone can tell that you put a lot of effort and time to produce such great content, I've also bought your book on my iPad. Keep the good work Tony and Chelsea. Greetings from Bolivia.

[@y0s0yalguien]

Great video! Great explanation of what dynamic range is... it is a concept that it's difficult to understand... this makes it so much easier! Thanks!

[@kaanaksoy2599]

Dear Tony, this tutorial of yours is very nice and a very powerful and deep one in 5 minutes. Thanks a lot. As a further one step ahead, you can prepare a 5-minute tutorial how to read histogram in detail and how to select shots of same frame with different exposures by inspecting histogram. That would be awesome for beginners.

[@madmartigan7723]

Tony Northrup I just ordered your "SDP" book from Amazon. I have been watching as many photography videos as possible. Your videos are great. I will never understand why it took me thirty-eight years to discover my interest in photography. However, I'm so glad I did. I only just received my first DSLR this past Father's Day. It was a Canon t5 (don't laugh) :-) I know that's not a very good camera. Still, I am just happy to have one. Thank you so much for your videos. I have learned so much already.

[@ardentdfender4116]

Found this video from a link you dropped in on your older video on Histogram on someone asking about shooting to the right for on Histogram for exposure. This was all very interesting to me and great explanation video.

[@Lucary1000]

Dear Tony, Thanks for probably the best explanation out there what dynamic range stops mean. I´m wondering still, what the real world difference between those 12 stops (Canon) and 14 stops (Nikon) is? Does it make such a difference in landscape shooting? Is it just noticeable in RAW, as all the jpegs from either camera has around 8 stops of B/W contrast? If you do multi-frame HDR stacking in any program, does the difference matter? Or is it just visible when increasing shadows on one RAW frame, if at all? Thanks and keep up the great work.

[@mohammedjawad5526]

Thanks tony and thank you Justin because the video was awesome and very professional!

[@k1ng617]

Thanks for another great vid! I've always shot to the left because I found pulling data from the shadows so, i don't know, pleasing? But, I'll take that advice and try it out next time. Also, that view of the Boston skyline looks like it was taken from the Hyatt near the airport (I just shot there 2 months ago).

[@2828play]

I really enjoy the way you explain photography your just awesome. God bless.

[@lalajdhfbdj]

One question.. I'm gonna approach jpeg from a different angle. Jpeg is file format adhering to specific colour spaces, and thus a jpeg file WILL have a limited dynamic range. A raw file in general is a collection of data which simply stores information, thus a raw file can have limitless dynamic range. When you process a raw file, you have all the dynamic range to work with, however when you finally want to publish it as a jpeg, you will still be limited to jpeg's inherent limitation. A stop is a stop, therefore assuming you expose for middle grey, you will only have around 4 stops above and below in the final jpeg. Therefore, if the picture you take requires 14 stops of dynamic range, and your raw file has 14 stops of dynamic range, the raw file has managed to capture all the details, however when u finally process and save as srgb 8bit jpeg, the 14 stops has to be squeezed into 8 stops, therefore, u essentially lose details no matter what. Therefore, a jpeg image (no matter how good the raw file is) will never ever be the same as seeing the real thing (unless the scene only requires 8 stops). What this also means is people who go about shouting how they only shoot raw because of the dynamic range do not really get that the final jpeg is but a shade of their true dynamic range

[@patrickfitzgerald2861]

Nicely put. In truth the vast majority of images taken world-wide will never be displayed on a medium that takes full advantage of even a JPEGS dynamic range. It's fun to talk about it though!

[@afterhoursphotography]

It just all made sense. Thanks!

[@jeffreylebowski4927]

That your jpeg will have 6 or so less stops of dynamic range does NOT mean that you loose 'detail' in your final jpeg image no matter what - you lose dynamic range... you can when editing the raw reduce the contrast so the 14 stops of DR will fit into the 8 stops DR of the jpeg retaining all the detail in the jpeg. You just lose dynamic range but who cares - obviously a printed out picture that you hang on a wall will never have that much dynamic range, important is the detail though!

[@pwolkowicki]

It depends on histogram. If your scene consists mostly of 2 peaks - 1 in shadows, 1 in highlights, you just make them closer without loosing the information. But if your histogram is even, you have to squeeze it to 8 bit loosing smooth tonal gradation. I hope I made myself clear, English isn't my first language.

[@driverv86]

Well done. To be honest the only time I worry about DR is on my Canon DSLR. My LX100 has almost 13 stops of DR and as long as I shoot middle/a bit to the right I can almost always pull my highlights in. Modern cameras in general are amazing, I almost never have to resort to HDR.

[@ricardp60]

Great video Tony. Very well explained. Thanks

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Pierre Ricard Thanks!

[@SanMiguelBulls]

Another awesome video, thanks Tony and Chelsea...

[@gvdurfee]

I think your points are well taken concerning exposing to the right if you need to lift the shadows. It seems to me that we want to pick camera exposure modes that adjust with wider apertures or longer shutter speeds, rather than bumping to higher ISO. This way, the sensor will actually capture more light, and the stored image file won't have as much additional noise in the shadows, owing to higher ISO. Do I have this right? Great video, by the way!

[@TonyAndChelsea]

gvdurfee Yep, you always want to gather the most light possible given your shutter speed requirements.

[@emmuck]

Nice explanation and animation, thank you guys !

[@Drmikekuna]

What a well produced video!

[@mwwalk]

Great video! I bet that took a fair amount of planning and post processing. We appreciate it.

[@ExploreWithMunish]

A real review of the lesson, Thanks for your time and effort Tony ! Glad that you are backing up my advice to my friends, to follow your channel :)

[@robertktw]

For indoor shots, would it be best to do custom white balance with 18% gray card close to subject when possible? Outdoor light will have more variables (cloud, sun's angle), that'll change WB as well, right? Histogram is definitely useful, i'll keep an eye on that! thx Tony!

[@terrythomas5305]

Thanks again for information. Is it relevant to speak about the dynamic range of monitors we view photos on? Also does making prints ever consider dynamic range. My guess is that not only the camera but the way we see the photo is as important?

[@SeanPMills325]

Very helpful. Thanks Tony!

[@beppemaniglia]

Interesting video Tony, thank you! A silly question comes to my mind, though: why do camera manufacturers keep increasing only the number of pixels on their sensors instead of expanding also the dinamic range? Just a matter of money?

[@007peter]

Awesome Explanation Tony. This is a great learning video

[@mdimran-gk5hy]

👍🏻 Can you explain little bit about DOL-HDR???

[@aronisink1]

Awesome.. Love the slow zoom effect....Guessing you shot in 4k and did the zooming in post....

[@Eddiesoc]

george aronis i think it was a nice touch as well and its probably shot in 4k from and A7S or something

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Eddie O'Connor Exactly, a7S with the Shogun.

[@MrToonfish]

Very nice animation dear Tony ! Will show this to one my colleague who is completely lost when I explain nearly the same thing with the histogram and exposure compensation ! ;-) Cheers.

[@janithemani]

I freaking love you Northrup!

[@suj1945]

Awesome video, great way of explaining it.

[@petualang_cuantik_admin]

Wawww i like this video... I can show to my friend, we discussed about Dynamic Range few days ago.. Thank you Tony

[@justinyuvilla8944]

how can you tell a camera's dynamic range? Is a good rule of thumb, the bigger the sensor size the higher the dynamic range? How do you adjust it manually in your camera like you explain in your video? Also is this dynamic range compensated for if you shot it as a RAW file and adjusted the highlights and shadows in an editing program to get those details back, thus making the dynamic range of the camera build not matter that much anymore?

[@richardrivera2233]

Excellent explanations. Thank you for posting.

[@jafargio]

Tony as always very nice video with nice illustration. I am wondering if there is any difference in terms of dynamic range for CR2 Canon files and CR2 files converted to DNG. I saw some videos on DNG advantages but in terms of image quality is it the same to CR2 (NEF) files straight out of the camera? Thank you!

[@mafianoodles]

late to the party - i watch jared talk about the sony a7iii with 15 steps of dynamic range - i come here for an explanation. thank you tony :)

[@markjohnson7761]

Another great video. Love your work!

[@carpenter22101]

You are awesome!

[@udipta21]

What a superb tutorial!

[@fleshTH]

I'm an absolute beginner and mostly shoot landscape because I have no willing subjects. while shooting in RAW, I've recently been using lightroom for my post processing. I have found that it is usually best to expose for the sky, maybe a 1/2 stop over, depending on the conditions. This will make the overall exposure of the foreground lower. In lightroom I then take down the highlights and bring up the shadows. Push the whites just before clipping and bring down the blacks to have a it clip a bit, but not much. I have found that this greatly improves the dynamic range. Again, I use this only for landscape. I have no idea how this works with portraits.

[@kipkipful]

THE WHAAAT!??!

[@kipkipful]

I NEED TO KNOW

[@kipkipful]

I NEED TO KNOW THE NATURE OF THE DEMONS THAT POSSESS MAN'S SOUL

[@mohammedhussain3930]

thank you very much helpfull.. and how would i reduce the amount of light without changing shutter speed ,apperture or iso

[@omeshsingh8592]

The dynamic range of a jpeg image is not limited to 8-stops. If you shoot jpeg, the contrast setting you use in your picture style will determine the dynamic range what is captured in the image of a high-dynamic-range scene.

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Omesh Singh right, it varies based in the processing. I was discussing the typical behavior.

[@omeshsingh8592]

I think on Canon bodies the default in-camera tone-curve allows for about 9-10 stops of DR with jpeg at ISOs that allow for as much DR. The Canon histogram displays five sections. With the default tone curve, the left-most section is a compressed view of the darkest five stops of data the remaining four sections to the right are all 1-stop apart. Giving a total of about 10 stops of DR. RAWs allow Canon users to pull an extra stop from the highlights. I don't have any Sony sensor bodies yet so not sure how much one can capture with their default in-camera with jpeg picture style, but I expect it should also be at least 10 stops.

[@protyushdas8237]

Sir I have a question...please answer this--- Does this phenomenon get better(at least to some extent) in high end APS-c cameras? Do they have more stops for more flexibility??

[@rathinkothiyal9761]

Brilliantly explained!

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Rathin Kothiyal Thanks!

[@LakshanW]

What was that software you were using to edit that train? Those filters were nice!

[@onursariyildiz8740]

most useful video on Internet about photography

[@hans2504]

I was wondering if you can maximize the dynamic range also by lowering the megapixels you’re shooting with.

[@pierre-yvesrenaud1814]

Thanks, very informative and clear!

[@mr.c30]

Very informative. Thank you Tony.

[@Yousparklealot]

I shot an entire portrait session with my friend in raw but underexposed so I could shoot at 1/60 and with f 3,5 and ISO 100 (to reduce noise) with okay indoor lighting, thinking I could recover everything in lightroom and have less noise. I was wondering why on earth the noise was so bad when I edited the pictures. And here I found my answer. Next time I will shoot to the right. But will I have less noise when I shoot with higher ISO versus the way I did it before?

[@mattmoriarty4738]

very well explained including the diagrams, thanks.

[@callmedeno]

is there much meaningful dynamic range difference between comparable cameras generally? eg. sony a7 iii and canon eos r? Aside from post production exposure adjustment capabilities, when composing shots in-camera is there ever really noticeable dynamic range differences? Or is it more of a pixel peep in post type thing?

[@SamirSogay]

This is an awesomely made video

[@ParanoidAandroid]

Top quality video, as always.

[@MarcelloBranca]

Awesome easy to understand explanation of a complex subject' nice ;)

[@jaydalal4258]

I'm sorry that its not related to the video....I am a wildlife and landscape photographer...what camera should I go for-Nikon d7200 or Sony a77 mrk ii....the price difference is not an issue...If there is a bettr dslr for the same pls recommend...thanks :)

[@aussie8114]

I hate how everyone hates on jpegs. You can do a huge amount of improvements to the highlights and especially shadows of a JPEG. Just under expose it a little.

[@mustafaghanim1134]

Thank you a lot for the useful information. Keep doing great job

[@madmarty7103]

If you shoot raw with sony sensors, expose to the right is a pretty bad choice. You can recover so much more details from black areas than from white areas.

[@chrisbanisch]

Thanks, Tony! Your eyes will lie to you, your histogram won’t!

[@barclayjb]

Hey Tony. You should win a "You-ie" award for that video. Well done.

[@DonnieGQX]

When you guys do the X-T2 video i hope you go in depth on how to achieve the max DR from it. :)

[@202SR]

Excellent video! Visual demo is very helpful! Sharing...

[@nethajiprabhugunasekaran6349]

Excellent video as usual. Keep it up!

[@christianwetzel2199]

is there a way to configure how the camera is calculating the jpeg out of the raw sensor data ? sure, i can shoot raw and the squeeze the full 12 stop dynamic range into an 8-bit jpeg, but why can't the camera do the same thing ? i am aware of the disadvantages of this, but is there any camera out there that gives me a little control (like a lightweight 'lightroom') without the need to carry around a laptop ? What i would love to have is a camera that can do the following: - take a (raw) picture - let me adjust the dynamic range on the camera display - upload the generated jpeg to the web

[@fg1110]

Great video my new favorite KZbin channels

[@johnrai9528]

yes it is very good and usefull. thanks whole team..

[@remysanchez2907]

I'm just quoting another video here but ISO doesn't really exist it's just a multiplier applied to the RAW data right? In that case, suppose that you shoot in auto ISO. The histogram will always be centered-ish however what really matters is aperture + shutter speed, aka the amount of light that hits the sensor. So I'm guessing that what I see is that potentially the picture will not be centered in the dynamic range. Could be either at the very end or the very beginning. I'm saying this because I tend to observe that in some scenes, changing the shutter speed will change the clipping of the whites by example, even though I'm shooting with the same hardware and the histogram was fine in both cases. Soooo. How to make sure that you have everything within the dynamic range? Expose to the right when dark and expose to the left when sunny? Shoot with a color profile (like HLG) and look at the histogram of that? Thanks :)

[@1barnet1]

over-exposing highlights on purpose? Maybe a nice tip for Canon shooters. Not so much for Nikon bodies at the low ISO's

[@SayWhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat]

wow 0:35 the sky such a nice color banding example :D