A slightly backlit, pre-dawn shot of my backyard, mimicking conditions one typically finds on landscape shoots. Let’s see how much detail I can pull out of the shadows…
I grabbed a quick backyard test shot this morning to test the Nikon D850 dynamic range. This is not a scientific test; instead it is simply a photo I captured using settings and conditions that I typically encounter in the field while leading my landscape photo safaris. With the D850 adding nearly 10 more megapixels than the Nikon D810, there was some question as to how well the new sensor would deliver in the dynamic range department. For most Nikon shooters I know, we are less interested in having more megapixels than we are in having the ability to capture wide tone ranges in the field. Continue reading Quick Test: D850 Dynamic Range→
Did you know that with a little tweaking, you can extract tremendous dynamic range from single RAW files in Adobe Lightroom without using HDR? The trick is to take advantage of Lightroom’s Camera Calibration panel. There, you set the initial tone curve of your image (contrast & color). By using a low-contrast tone curve, you can recover more highlight and shadow details than by using sliders alone. If you use Nikon DSLRs, you can choose the “Camera Flat” profile to get more dynamic range. If you don’t have a Nikon camera, you can create your own custom profile with a linear tone curve by using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. My video above will show you how.
