Scene dynamic range.

Exercise: Scene dynamic range.

The object was to find scenes with varying dynamic ranges and measure that range.  

I used the Canon G1X set at ISO 100 throughout.  Spot meter used for measuring and centre weighted for image taking.

1. The first scene is of my street which had a brightly illuminated side and another in deep shadow.  At f8 I had an aperture range of between 1/160 and 1/8.  When I viewed the image I noticed some shadow clipping.  I can only assume that these areas were too small to picked up by the spot metering system.

The dynamic range was therefor 5 stops, not counting the clipped areas.

The second is scene in St. George's Church yard and is of a headstone and shrubbery.  

At f8 I got a six stop range, from 1/400 down to 1/13.  I was surprised the range was so great but the dense shadow in the bush as against the small area of sky accounted for it.  Again there is a small area of shadow clipping that I missed when taking the picture.

The third is again in the church yard but is of a single headstone with neither deep shadows or bright high lights.  At f4 I got a three stop range, from 1/40 to 1/10.  I ignored the background when I took the readings concentrating solely on the light and dark areas as seen at this viewing distance.  I realise the range would have been greater had I got in closer to the shadow areas of the headstone.

The forth is of a plaque in the wall of the church.  I wanted to see the range between the white of the plaque against the dark of the bricks.  I again got a three stop range from 1/160 to 1/40 at f2.8.  This was far less that I had anticipated.  

For the last image I went to Deal Pier where I knew I would get a wider dynamic range.  At f8 I got a range of four stops from 1/640 to 1/80.  This was the range from the cloud down to the dark body of the pier.  there is again a small amount of clipping in the deepest shadow areas but they were too small to be registered by the camera.