@Mkiv wrote:
After reviewing your input, I have done some testing. I always shoot RAW in Adobe RGB. I also almost always shoot in Aperture Priority while manually adjusting my Exposure Compensation. I have tried HDR PQ with and without D+ and D+2. I am wondering however, if I am always shooting in RAW, are all of these techniques really capturing more dynamic range? It seems that in my type of photography(photojournalism), that I tend to be more concerned with my highlights not blowing out. On looking at my histogram after shooting with HDR PQ, I noticed that there seems to be a visible limit line on the highlights. Therefore, are HDR PQ and D+ or D+2 just a way of preserving my highlight detail? Or is this method only helping my visual perception of the image on the camera back? Once again, because I am always shooting in RAW, does any of this matter? Is the sensor just capturing everything it can by default when shooting RAW and therefore I should just be concerned with highlight preservation?
First, I may not have been clear enough on the specific use of HDR PQ in my comments, so I apologize for that. To be clear, HDR PQ is for displaying on HDR compliant monitors (HDR 10). As Peter mentioned, PQ (Perceptual Quantization) applies a different tone curve which has greater bit depth, 10 bits IIRC, and applies better transition in colors to reduce banding, "It's using the standardized gamma curve called PQ, which is mapped in a way to put more weight on transitions that the human eye is sensitive to and finds pleasing", so using a Raw PQ or HEIF to convert to JPG defeats the purpose as JPG is an 8bit file. Displays may try to emulate HDR with the JPG, but that's it, which is the case for the back camera display and DPP 4 when you don't have an HDR display. If you plan to use HDR PQ, your camera must be set to HDR PQ for the PQ data to be included in the Raw file, so you can not make a PQ HEIF/HIF from a regular Raw CR3 as the PQ data is not there.
Given your type of shooting (low light), I think you are on the right track to figuring it out ("Aperture Priority while manually adjusting my Exposure Compensation"). As to aRGB, If you are shooting Raw, I don't think color space carries much weight in post as it can be changed, so it's for JPG's, your camera LCD, or maybe the initial view in your post editor and thumbnails. I use "Wide Gamut RGB" once I'm in post, but we all have our preferences 🙂 As for the histogram, it's the same on my R5 and R6II in that it cuts off about a third of my entire scale in the highlights. But once I get the HDR PQ files into DPP 4, my histogram expands to 1023.
To repeat: "Once again, because I am always shooting in RAW, does any of this matter? Is the sensor just capturing everything it can by default when shooting RAW and therefore I should just be concerned with highlight preservation?"
That is correct! Unless you are shooting to display your Raw HDR PQ files on an HDR compliant monitor or distributing HEIF to others that also have HDR equipment, it does not matter. Your Raw files are going to have the best dynamic range they can produce. They just won't have the PQ data.
Newton
