Nikon D7100 12-13 Dynamic range test???

Danielvilliers

Danielvilliers

Veteran
So I was waiting for a Ninja and my D800 back to do a comparison for the Dynamic range. In the end I could not wait any-more because after sharpness this was the second most important thing for me. So I decided to conduct a little test this sunny afternoon. I shot this scene and measured my shutter speed to see fstop numbers. I used lpowell .4 gama and Samuel H flat 11, I also did a gamma correction to 6 in premier to get a flatter look a see how much I could go.

Everyone can also download the 1080p images here https://plus.google.com/photos/1159...s/5903917868811732817?authkey=CNDvxu3QnuqyjgE which is much better because the scene grabs in dvxuser are not very good quality.

So the first screen grab represent the scene in fstop. So at iso 100 f 5.6 the brightest part is at 1/4000 of a second and the darkest part is in the house at 1 second. I took those measurement with my Sekonic L758DR. I took two other measurement with one at 1/2 second and the other one 1/4 second. So if we round up the fstops in second it would be from 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/3000. So about 13 stop if we see that there is separation between the 1 and 1/2 second exposure. Is it too optimistic, should it be 12, that is my question.

The second frame grab is the scene captures with Samuel H Flaat 11 profile. Third frame grab is Flaat 11 again but I changed the gama to .6 in premiere to boost the shadows a little bit to see how much we could see in shadows. The forth frame grab is the image taken at Lpowell .4 gamma . Then I included the frame grab of each scene with wavefrom monitor, so as people can see the exposure. Again download the image on the link above and the video on the link below to get a better idea of the images.


fstop dr d7100 test.jpgFlaat 11.jpgshutter speed fstop.jpggama .4 .jpgwaveform flaat 11 gama .6.jpgwaveform flaat 11.jpgwaveform gama .4.jpg


So what do you think ? Could some expert like Samuel give us his insight. I have put some frame grabs of the waveform monitor. The shot where done at 1/400 of a second.
The lifting of the shadows does come with some noise and FPN. I am uploading some video file for people to see.
 

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I'm sure what you are doing is brilliant, but I can't understand it for the life me, LOL! What do the fractions on the image mean? And the different screen grabs represent what? Thanks. ;)
 
Hi sorry it might be a bit confusing. So I put some more explanation in the original post and I reproduce it here.

View attachment 74100


So the first screen grab represent the scene in fstop. So at iso 100 f 5.6 the brightest part is at 1/4000 of a second and the darkest part is in the house at 1 second. I took those measurement with my Sekonic L758DR. I took two other measurement with one at 1/2 second and the other one 1/4 second. So if we round up the fstops in second it would be from 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/3000. So about 13 stop if we see that there is separation between the 1 and 1/2 second exposure. Is it too optimistic, should it be 12, that is my question.

The second frame grab is the scene captures with Samuel H Flaat 11 profile. Third frame grab is Flaat 11 again but I changed the gama to .6 in premiere to boost the shadows a little bit to see how much we could see in shadows. The forth frame grab is the image taken at Lpowell .4 gamma . Then I included the frame grab of each scene with wavefrom monitor, so as people can see the exposure. Again download the image on the link above and the video on the link below to get a better idea of the images.
 
So no one wants to chime in, I really want to know if my measurement are good or not. Because it would be good to know how much stop the D7100 can do. If it can do 12+ it is big news for a dslr.
 
I dont know about the measurements Daniel but from the eye that looks terrific. More than from any dslr that I have seen. Probably more that Mark 3. This is good. I can see a bit detail in the darks and in the highlights and i am pretty sure that it would be recoverable to some extent on the h264 and more on uncompressed.
 
Hi. I have very limited internet connection right now and can't see the video or check where there's detail or where there's not, but I will add a couple of comments:

* AFAIK, if you can distinguish detail in 13 separate stops of light, you have 12 stops of DR. This means that your measurement is very much in line to what I originally got (11.7 stops).
(the reasoning is that a camera with 1 stop of DR is that which is able to differenciate detail in areas A and B which are one stop apart from each other in terms of brightness; so: 2 measures=1 stop, 3 measures=2 stops, etc.)
(at least this is what I understood from the wikipedia article on the subject: a power factor of 2 is one stop of DR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range)

* This also means that the 5D3+RAW is very close to this in terms of DR


BTW: how happy are you with that sekonic? My next purchase will be a light meter; I have a smaller budget in mind, but if I decided to spend some more, some version of the 758 is what I would go for, I think. But for that kind of price, it better be REALLY good!
 
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Yes the sekonic is very nice, but I use it mostly for my studio flash photography and it is not the cine version. I have seen that they have release new touch screen version that are cine but lacks the spot meter.
 
Samuel H who does the flaat profile measured the D800 at 11+ stop and EBU test commonly referred as the BBC test gave it 11.9 stops. It even gave the D4 13 stop of DR.
 
I measured 11.7 stops on the D800 and on the D5200 (I talk about absolute DR: if there's detail, it counts, no matter how noisy it is; how much of that is actually usable, is subjective, so I won't comment on that)
 
Hi Samuel, there is the video below that made me buy a atomos Ninja. Even with the youtube compression you can clearly see the much better detail into the shadows. Also there is a abrupt shadow blocking that comes straight up from internal codec, while you can clearly see a smooth transition and nuance compared to the internal footage (book page in foreground, remote control in first scene. lens cap in first scene/shadows in second scene). I think the pixel binning tech in the d7100 toshiba sensor could the reason for perhaps even better shadows that the other Nikon like the D800 which use Sony line skipping tech. It could be quite exciting because we might get half or a stop more DR from this.

 
Yes, I am quite surprised and intrigued by the result. He said he used Neutral and tried some flat profile and the DR was still better on the Ninja footage. He also stated that the noise and fpn was lower. Overall this camera with a Ninja could be a real winner. I have done some footage of human being and high DR scene and getting some very good result with some testing of neatvideo.
 
I was lately watching a lot of D7100 footage and always had the impression it had good DR. Now, with what I've seen here it should come close to a C100 at less than half the price. I'm sure Neatvideo is able to clean up the Atomos-footage. Add some organic noise and you even might be able to hush up the 8bit-limitations. Now, just imagine something like the D7100 with 10bit out...
 
Hey, if we're going to dream, let's dream big! 14-bit linear RAW out if this sensor would give you 14 stops of DR. Now THAT would be awesome! :)
 
Samuel H said:
Hey, if we're going to dream, let's dream big! 14-bit linear RAW out if this sensor would give you 14 stops of DR. Now THAT would be awesome! :)
Click to expand...

But does that sensor belong in THAT D7100 ?

what would happen if Panasonic slapped it into the GH5 say ? Added focus peaking a decent viewfinder- there you have it! The Panasonic Gh5 DX RAW capable Mirrorless.
 
Oh, of course, make it mirrorless too, so I can attach a metabones speedbooster in front of it and keep my 24mm as a 24mm. I don't care whose brand the camera has on its sticker.
 
Samuel H said:
Hey, if we're going to dream, let's dream big! 14-bit linear RAW out if this sensor would give you 14 stops of DR. Now THAT would be awesome! :)
Click to expand...

Until I can process RAW in post like I handle ProRes now, that big dream is a bit too nightmarish for me. I think the actual sweetspot is 2K-10bit and I wonder sometimes why there are so few options in the 10 bit world.
 
OK, 10-bit 422 is easier to work with, but it is actually easier to develop a 14-bit-linear RAW camera, so it may be what we get first. Plus, this is my dream, and I can dream whatever I like, so it also includes super-powerful computers and software that makes editing and compositing RAW clips a breeze. There, problem solved.
 
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