Exercise: Your camera's dynamic range.

This is the range between the dark and the bright areas of a scene and it is measured in f-stops. The dynamic range is therefore the number of stops that the camera can capture in one photograph between the brightest highlight and the darkest shadow area. This means that it is important that the camera has a greater dynamic range than the area that you are going to photograph. If the dynamic range is less than the area being photographed then this means that some detail within the image will be lost.

To begin the exercise I first found a scene that displayed a high dynamic range. I chose to use the back of my house when it faced the sun. I focused on the patio doors so that you can see darkness and some detail within. I placed the white paper against the door to provide contrast. I made sure that the ISO setting was at its lowest of 200 and that noise reduction was off. It was then necessary to set the exposure and check that there was no highlight clipping of the white paper.

I then measured the brightness level of the white paper, the darkest area through the window and also an area of the wall in shadow. To do this I had to read my manual to make sure that I was setting the spot metering mode correctly. I always like to double check when it involves a setting that I have not regularly used before. Once set I used the zoom to measure the required areas by filling the frame with the chosen areaI then made a note of the aperture and shutter speed combinations.

I found this exercise hard to complete in several ways. Firstly it took a while for me to understand what I was being asked to do. I have also had the weather to contend with and have been waiting weeks to complete this exercise as I thought that sooner or later we would be due brighter weather. This of course has no arrived so I have decided to carry out the exercise so that I understand the principle involved and then I shall hopefully revisit it when the weather is better for a more accurate result.

 Shooting s that there was no highlight clipping requires the settings of 1/500 f6.3. I then needed to measure two or three different areas of the image. The card measured f9.5 being the brightest area where as the darket area viewed through the door measured f4.8. This gave me a a dynamic range of four f stops. I realise that there may be several factors which have contributed to this result. Firstly the lens I am using may limit the range, the weather is a factor as it did not quite meet the criteria either. From research online it wouldseem that my camera should have a dynamic range of eight f stops. I have found this the hardest exercise so far. Whilst reading the course material on what to do it all made sense and I understand the principle and what the outcome should be. It was just arriving at the point that was causing me problems. I think that I will research dynamic range further and also come back to this exercise so that I can fully understand this topic.