Digital cameras don’t capture ready-made images. The data captured by the sensor has to be processed first. This happens automatically and instantaneously if you set the camera to shoot JPEG images. Many cameras don’t give you any other option. However, more advanced models like high end compact cameras, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras will also let […]
Shadow recovery
Shadow recovery is a software technique that lets you brighten very dark areas of a picture to reveal otherwise unseen detail. It uses the extra image data captured in RAW files, so you have to shoot RAW to be able to do this later on a computer.
Dynamic range and exposure
Dynamic range is the camera sensor’s ability to capture detail in very bright and very dark parts of a scene. Cameras (or sensors) with a low dynamic range record dark shadows as a solid black or bright highlights as a featureless white. In the days of film, this was known as a film’s ‘exposure latitude’. […]