• April 27, 2023, 4:02 p.m.

    But what you should be trying to avoid is setting up mental models that will constrain the beginners' thinking if they choose to become more than a beginner.

  • April 27, 2023, 4:06 p.m.

    Non-sequitur.

  • April 27, 2023, 4:13 p.m.

    I don't think so. For a star, Alan's already found the massive contradiction in that article, just by reading it with as an intelligent person seeking understanding.
    Now here's another exercise. Find the contradictions and deviations from empirical fact in this article.
    I should say, this is the latest of several versions, progressively edited in response to nasty pedants (including my good self) who pointed out the contradictions and deviations from empirical fact in previous versions.

  • Members 1737 posts
    April 27, 2023, 4:40 p.m.

    I don't disagree with that. However, the best exposure for SOOC JPEG is rarely the best exposure for a raw file.

  • Members 17 posts
    April 27, 2023, 4:45 p.m.

    We are, truly, the inheritors of DPReview. A long and abstruse argument, some bits tending to acrimony, deeply divergent about a topic which only ever produces disagreement and never actually helps people expose their images correctly. I've not seen all the DPR favourite futile debates on here but the exposure triangle is one of them. We need to hope DPR doesn't sue for infringement of its IP with these long and unhelpful debates.

  • Members 976 posts
    April 27, 2023, 4:46 p.m.

    Are you certain?

  • Members 457 posts
    April 27, 2023, 4:56 p.m.

    A lot of useful posts in this thread are about debunking urban myths and "alternative facts." If you are willing to learn what happens when you press the shutter, you can gain something from this thread.

  • Members 536 posts
    April 27, 2023, 5:09 p.m.

    No mean hard-clipping response, but individual grains will only get photo-activated once, which is a sort of elemental clipping.

    The same would happen with a one-bit digital sensor; you'd have a linear response right up to the point where the first photosite is hit twice, and can't change any further, and then as exposure continues, more and more photosites are hit and there are fewer and fewer that can still change.

    I just did a simulation of a 100 kilopixel sensor that received 10,000 spatially random photons per frame in an animation, turning the canvas eventually from all-white to all-black, and it took about 120 frames before the last white pixel turned black. That means that it took about 12x the mean capacity of each frame to completely saturate it.

  • Members 536 posts
    April 27, 2023, 5:19 p.m.

    That depends on what you need. Room for surprise highlights? Minimal read noise? Two different needs, two different potential priorities.
    This is not about MANDATES. This is about understanding the pros and cons of your options.

  • Members 976 posts
    April 27, 2023, 5:21 p.m.

    A grain being activated doesn't necessarily mean it will be developed, too ;)

  • April 27, 2023, 5:22 p.m.

    Call me simple, but I'd have thought that knowing what 'exposure' means and what is 'correct' exposure is a rather basic requirement of exposing images correctly. Camera automation does a decent enough job, but if you insist on 'correct' you're raising the bar somewhat.

    sure. there would be a lot less if those that had, for whatever reason, failed to learn the basics of photography would just acknowledge that simple fact, instead of arguing forever to try and change the basics to their faulty notion of it.

  • Members 536 posts
    April 27, 2023, 5:45 p.m.

    You can't GAIN on photon noise, dark current noise, PRNU noise, or pre-gain read noise through amplification; they are baked into the original charges in the photosites. (PRNU noise has no relationship to exposure.)

    Greater amplification can only gain on post-gain read noise or too low of a bit-depth in the digitization.

    Pre-gain read noise can vary between low ISO settings and high ones, though, with dual conversion gain, but that is a difference in capacitance at the photosites..

  • Members 536 posts
    April 27, 2023, 5:59 p.m.

    Well, I meant doing everything "correctly" according to the triangle peddlers. That would include scene illumination. Just the three data points, Av, Tv, and ISO are meaningless without that, for getting an OOC JPEG with expected brightness.

  • Members 689 posts
    April 27, 2023, 6:15 p.m.

    Why BIF or action shooters set shutter speed to freeze motion, f/stop to desired DOF or wide opened and let auto ISO in camera to provide acceptable brightness of the image. Scenes illumination can change quite a bit but image brightness will be more or less the same. Noise is another story. In this scenario what else will affect image lightness?

  • Members 280 posts
    April 27, 2023, 6:38 p.m.

    School gives you some practice at learning things, which you can then apply to learning things that are not in the school curriculum.
    I'm sure that shot noise wasn't in any curriculum that I experienced.

    Don Cox

    Don

  • Members 976 posts
    April 27, 2023, 6:45 p.m.

    Raw conversion and image processing.
    For raw, ISO is undefined and it's effect on image lightness is undefined. Even the effect ISO setting has on image density vary.

  • Members 689 posts
    April 27, 2023, 6:51 p.m.

    What about JPEG?

  • Members 976 posts
    April 27, 2023, 6:56 p.m.

    I edit TIFFs and JPEGs routinely, including for midtone lightness.
    I have absolutely no idea why lightness even enters the discussion, unless one wants to display images "as is".