Dynamic range of exposure for t3i/600d

[gsunda01]

can someone help me by providing the dynamic range of exposure for t3i. (dynami range - Lowest and highest exposure range in terms of f-stops for a given scene)

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

See:  http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos600d/12

Their testing seems to indicate that it's about 5 stops below and 3&1/3rd stops to 4&1/3rd stops above (depending on if highlight tone priority was swtiched on.)

I think those were JPEG tests (I didn't see any indication of RAW and they usually go out of their way to let you know when they're doing RAW.)  There is substantially more bit depth in RAW so it's likely to do a bit better if you shoot RAW.

If you're shooitng anything where you are worried about dynamic range then you should probably be shooting RAW anyway.

[gsunda01]

Thank you

[ebiggs1]

If you are from the film days and expect DR to be the same, it is not.  The numbers used to express it may be the same but how a sensor and film work is not.  I know I struggled when I first swirched to digital because I was so used to film specs.

IMHO, always use RAW.  There really isn't a good reason not to.

[TCampbell]

Just from a simple math perspective it's easy to understand why RAW is the better way to go.

The JPEG standard uses 8 bits per color channel (that's the bit-depth).  RAW is more of a "concept" than a specific standard so this can vary based on camera model, but your Canon (and all currently marketed Canon cameras) uses 14 bits per color channel.

8 bits means you get 256 levels of that color.  14 bits provides 16,384 levels per channel (that's 64 times more bit-depth than JPEG).

The trade-off is that the camera does no prcoessing on RAW images that would cause a loss of original data.  So there's no in-camera sharpening or de-noising.  There's no in-camera white-balance or color adjustment, etc.  All of that is handled by the computer.  But many image processing programs optimized for RAW processing will do that on-the-fly as you import your images from camera (meaning you wont miss the fact that the camera isn't doing it for you because in the end you just important your images and by the time you look at them these adjustments have already been applied.

[vardor]

I'm a beginner, so I am probably confused about using the RAW footage when it comes to my computer.

If I select RAW in my t3i, then put the video footage into FCPX, on my mid-2011 iMac, will my computer be able to handle the size of the footage? Will my FCPX (or DaVinci Resolve 12 if I choose) convert it to Prores ?

My iMac specs:

I also have a Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB external hardrive

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 

4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

My goal is to maximize the Dynamic Range of the camera, IF the computer can handle it. Till now, ive been videoing in  H.264

Thanks!                                                             

[kvbarkley]

Raw does not apply to video

[RobertTheFat]

---

@vardor wrote:

I'm a beginner, so I am probably confused about using the RAW footage when it comes to my computer.

If I select RAW in my t3i, then put the video footage into FCPX, on my mid-2011 iMac, will my computer be able to handle the size of the footage? Will my FCPX (or DaVinci Resolve 12 if I choose) convert it to Prores ?

My iMac specs:

I also have a Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB external hardrive

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 

4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

My goal is to maximize the Dynamic Range of the camera, IF the computer can handle it. Till now, ive been videoing in  H.264

Thanks!                                                             

---

Does anybody still doubt that there's a need for a separate "Video" board in this forum?

[kvbarkley]

Maybe so, but I bet this poster would have still piled on in the wrong topic!

[kvbarkley]

I guess I should point out that there are some high end cameras that shoot in RAW, like the Canon C series, but that does not apply to Rebels!