7 replies to this topic

[ScottinPollock]

Please correct me if I am wrong about this... there are only two in-camera settings that actually modify .nef files:

 

1.) Long Exposure Noise Reduction - The camera takes a long exposure and then a second exposure of equal length with the shutter closed to discover noisy pixels in that time frame that are median'd out of the raw data.

 

2.) Active D-Lighting - which actually affects exposure calculation based on the content of the scene.

[Merco_61]

ADL isn't baked into the .nef. If you take a series with different ADL settings and open in anything but ViewNX or CaptureNX, you won't be able to tell what setting was used.

LENR, on the other hand is.

WB isn't baked into the file, but it is the only in-camera parameter that all raw converters read.

[ScottinPollock]

ADL isn't baked into the .nef.

Hmmm... Nikon's documentation states "Active D-Lighting adjusts exposure before shooting to optimize the dynamic range".

You're saying this is not really the case?

There are warnings about noise and banding associated with its use... are these issues solely a result of algorithms applied in post by Capture/View?

[Merco_61]

It seems to be more a question of how the 12 or 14 bits are mapped into the 8 bits of a .jpg than anything else. It might tweak the matrix metering algorithm a bit, but I wouldn't know as I don't use matrix. I can't judge what ADL setting was used with files opened next to each other if they are processed with ACR.

[ScottinPollock]

If you take a series with different ADL settings and open in anything but ViewNX or CaptureNX, you won't be able to tell what setting was used.

LENR, on the other hand is.

 

I just did a quick and dirty test in center-weighted and I see a difference when opening the Nefs in Affinity Photo, as well as Preview, Acorn, and Pixelmator. The later three use Apple's Core Image RAW, while Affinity can use it's own RAW engine or Apple's (which I have set to former).

 

The shot with ADL turned on definitely has less exposure.

[Ron]

What about color space? Doesn't that effect RAW files?

 

--Ron

[ScottinPollock]

No. It will change the histogram, but that is based on a jpeg conversion in camera. You can apply any colorspace to map the raw data in post.

This brings up an interesting point in so much that if you're exposing based on the histogram, better to have in camera settings set to the most neutral picture control to really see how much headroom you actually have.

[Cymon]

ActiveD is processing within the camera and does affect the RAW file. ActiveD with help with highlights and shadows, I also, and this is my personal views but I do no in-camera processing and only use Neutral for the camera profile. I only need the correct exposure and to have it in focus, that is all I care about, the rest is done in Lightroom.