RP JPEG Dynamic Range: blacks crushed or lights blown out

[Vivid_Lizard]

Hi. My first time on this forum and I hope you can help with an issue.

I bought an RP last year and have been trying to solve an issue with dynamic range / HDR.

I do location scouting for film and TV (along with my own photography).  For my own purposes I take bracketed raw files and combine them in in Photoshop for an HDR image.  All well and good.  But when I'm taking my scouting shots I need to process my photos and send them to my client as soon as possible.  This usually means working with JPEGs (no conversion from raw).

My ideal situation would be for me to take JPEGs directly (along with raw for the heck of it) and have the JPEGs have a nice dynamic range... but no matter how I do the settings, the JPEGs come out with either the darks crushed or the lights blown out.  There is no good combination of settings to get me a decent, well-balanced and pleasing image.  I've tried hundreds of combinations... nothing seems to work.

I'm somewhat spoiled by my Samsung Ultra smartphone cameras.  It's native HDR is brilliant for this kind of work and is pretty much perfect right out of the phone for these types of shots.  But it's not practical to use for various reasons.  I just don't understand why my Canon can't give me optimized dynamic range images with out a junk-load of processing on my part.

And yes, I've tried using the HDR in-camera setting, but it's useless on location because each shot takes 10 seconds to process and while it's doing that, the camera is out of commission for anything else.

Does anyone have any suggestions?  Am I missing something?

Also, if there is no solution, does anyone have a suggestion for a different camera that might fit my needs (Canon would be nice since I've already invested in Canon RF full frame glass, but I'll take what I can get).

Thanks!

[jrhoffman75]

---

@Vivid_Lizard wrote:

Hi. My first time on this forum and I hope you can help with an issue.

I bought an RP last year and have been trying to solve an issue with dynamic range / HDR.

I do location scouting for film and TV (along with my own photography).  For my own purposes I take bracketed raw files and combine them in in Photoshop for an HDR image.  All well and good.  But when I'm taking my scouting shots I need to process my photos and send them to my client as soon as possible.  This usually means working with JPEGs (no conversion from raw).

My ideal situation would be for me to take JPEGs directly (along with raw for the heck of it) and have the JPEGs have a nice dynamic range... but no matter how I do the settings, the JPEGs come out with either the darks crushed or the lights blown out.  There is no good combination of settings to get me a decent, well-balanced and pleasing image.  I've tried hundreds of combinations... nothing seems to work.

I'm somewhat spoiled by my Samsung Ultra smartphone cameras.  It's native HDR is brilliant for this kind of work and is pretty much perfect right out of the phone for these types of shots.  But it's not practical to use for various reasons.  I just don't understand why my Canon can't give me optimized dynamic range images with out a junk-load of processing on my part.

And yes, I've tried using the HDR in-camera setting, but it's useless on location because each shot takes 10 seconds to process and while it's doing that, the camera is out of commission for anything else.

Does anyone have any suggestions?  Am I missing something?

Also, if there is no solution, does anyone have a suggestion for a different camera that might fit my needs (Canon would be nice since I've already invested in Canon RF full frame glass, but I'll take what I can get).

Thanks!

---

Welcome. I think you answered your own question.

You state you need to shoot bracketed RAW images in camera and combine in Ps to get the range you want.

The in-camera JPEG images from your camera are simply processed RAW images. They aren't going to be any more than the original RAW. The in-camera HDR processing is doing essentially what you are doing in Ps.

Modern cellphones are using computational photography to get the images they produce. In certain situations they are going to be superior to a digital camera.

[Waddizzle]

You say that highlights are either blown out or shadows are crushed when you do HDR captures of a series of images.   I do not understand the issue.  

Isn’t that the point when you capture a series of images to combine into an HDR composite?  One or more images may seem overexposed.  One or more images may seem underexposed.  And, one or more images may have a little bit both, blown highlights and crushed shadows.