selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

It’s actually three cameras, two Nikons and a Sony. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Surely you are familiar with Occam's Razor, "The principle of parsimony or simplicity according to which the simpler theory is more likely to be true."

Highlight warnings in the camera are not generated by the hardware, which might vary slightly from one copy to the next depending on quality control.

They are generated by the cameras' software which has no reason to change the threshold for blinkies from one camera to the next or one model to the next.

It is apparently the same for the two Nikon's as well as the Sony camera that I tested (I can't speak for other brands).

Not only that, two raw conversion programs agree - Capture One and Capture NX-D. I would not be surprised to find that ACR agrees as well.

As R.G. pointed out once before, that it may be as simple as having the most significant bit turn on. For example, 8191=01111111111111 plus one is 8182=10000000000000.

So that's five (maybe six) separate software algorithms that show basically the same thing - blinkies starting at about 8000 in the 14-bit raw file in one or more channels. That's not a coincidence.

Bipod

It's kiinda difficult to display an example image with 14 stops of contrast on an LCD/LED monitor that
can only display 6-7 stops at one time. I guess you caption it "PRETEND THE BLACKS ARE BLACKER."

How many people are reading this on an OLED or CRT monitor? Not all, I'll warrant.
Most monitors are LCD/LED.

It's always been true in photography that what you use to look affects what you see.
Look at a film negative with the naked eye and you'll see one thing.
Look at it with a loope, you'll see more detail.
Inspect it with densiometer you'll count more tones (3 or more tones in what apeared "pure black"
to the eye).
But opticallly print it, and you'll get fewer tones then you saw with your eye.

An image file is just a table of numbers. Software and display hardware turn it into an image.
So can a inkjet printer or a laser printer. They will all produce different images.

Bipod

This is not the Zone System applied to digital.

The Zone System, as devised by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, and as further elaborated by Fred Picker,
Minor White, and others, starts with a visualization of the final image.

Then you pick a camera, lens, etc. and an exposure that allows you to produce a final image that matches your
visualiation. (So of couse, it also matters how you plan to display the image. )

So to use the Zone System, you need to know the DR of both your camera and the final image medium
(regular photo paper, platinum paper, cyanotype, plain paper and inkjet, laser printer, photo-lithograph,
silk screen--whatever). These media all have different DRs as well as different reflectivity or luminosity.
(They also differ in many other ways that will affect your visualization but not necessarily exposure: size,
aspect ratio, resolution, sharpness, gradation, reflectivity or luminosity, color reproduction capability. etc.)

We do not live in a world where all photographs exist only as images on identical computer monitors. The
sooner we all realize this, the better.

Bipod

There is something funky about this image. All the saguaro cacti appear to be leaning
away from the camera. Also, the virga in the sky (if that's what it is) does not appear
to be falling straight down.

Crummy wide-angle lens? HDR? What's up with it?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Perhaps it's not the image that's funky. The fence posts are vertical. The cactus grows the way it grows. I guess your not acquainted with winds and breezes that occur during storms. The rain is subject to these things and can be blown around quite a bit. So, it neither a crummy wide-angle lens nor HDR upon which I rarely rely, as good exposure techniques result in it's not being needed.

But, let's deflect the discussion regarding exposure so we can reveal your misunderstanding of how wind can affect the direction rain fall.

Here's another one around which you might want to bend your brain. https://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/2018/12/31/554616-d800_2017073101_015.jpg

--Bob

Bipod

So it really doesn't look odd to you, Bob? Honestly? I'm not trying to be nasty, I'm
just trying to understand what you see vs. what I see in the photo.

The converging cacti may just be perspective (too bad these little cameras won't tilt).
But it does look like barrel distortion.

I've seen a lot clouds, but those look more like clouds that moved during focus stacking.
Just curious: did you use focus stacking or HDR on that photo?

Wind can effect rain, of course, but so can focus stacking. As long as we're being honest.

It is a very dramatic photo.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Bipod, It's a single exposure. Nothing done special in processing. The camera was tilted up just a bit, not really radically. I believe the focal length was set to 28mm.
--Bob