How much ND Filter is too much?

[Deleted member 94047]

Let it go gentle men; this discussion has outlived its usefulness.

 

[John Suhr]

Ok so to try and get best exposure the way to deal with it is HDR. I have done a lot of HDR and with real estate but not on the Mavic Pro Plat I usually don’t shoot stills on it. Do we have full AEB? Can we adjust the EV? I prefer not to let the camera do it auto. Photomatix is quick and easy

 

[imnotdedyet]

As a stills photographer of nature just getting into drones, I agree the original image is overexposed. Even the renditions done later by brett show blown out highlights. You can tell by the unnatural transition from the realistic tones of the bright areas to nearly pure white, and I'll get into more below on how you can have a histogram reflecting nothing blown out while still having blown out portions of the image.

While the histogram of the image indicates there are no blown highlights, (there is no spike on the far right hand of the histogram) that doesn't mean the captured image did not have blown highlights. As an example for yourself, take an image where the highlights are obviously blown, (histogram shows data touching or spiking on the right edge of the histogram) then decrease the exposure a stop or more in lightroom. Suddenly you have no part of the histogram touching the far-right hand of the histogram border. And some images even show a slight graduation to the floor of the histogram. But the highlights in the original image were still blown out, and the brightest areas will show unnatural transitions to the very brightest spots as the original image and resulting images did. Heck, take the exposure in lightroom all the way down and you'll still see fairly bright areas in the image.

The way to overcome this is by watching the histogram as you take pictures. Lower the exposure so that there are no spikes or better yet anything touching the far right side of the histogram. When doing so, if you now notice there is a spike or portions touching the left hand of the histogram, the dynamic range of the image is too wide for your camera's sensor. So you have two options: use HDR, which I'll explain later, or take the image where nothing is touching or spiking on the right side of the histogram. (as mentioned earlier, it's better to clip shadows than highlights) For HDR - take an image at the recommended exposure, increase EV by 1 stop take another image, decrease the image from the recommended exposure by 1 stop. If you still find you're having areas or spikes on either side of the histogram, take it up 1 stop further from the highest EV and take an image, then take it down anther stop from the lowest EV and take another image. Combine via HDR in Lightroom, etc.

And one final comment on the topic - even if everything in the image is in the dynamic range of the sensor, (neither the right or left side of the histogram is touching the edge) bringing up shadows or bringing down highlights in post may result in dulled color. So even if nothing is blown out or clipped, you still may want to try HDR to ensure you get the best color possible.