0:00 I've just been kind of reorganizing and fixing things up around here, but it's taking a little bit longer than I thought. Hi everyone and welcome to Pallet Tech. So before we get into today's video, I've got a couple of announcements. I'll make one of them now and the other one at the end of the video. This right here. One of the things I found a little interesting about it is that the lens cap doesn't cover the whole front of the lens, right? It covers this part. And I'm curious to know your thoughts on that. Do you want your lens caps completely covering and maybe protecting the entire front of the lens or do you like the look of this? So, let me know in the comments because I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Okay, let's roll that classic fast Friday video and
0:45 I'll see you right back here in a couple of minutes. Hi everyone, welcome to Palto Tech. The D-Range priority setting is located in the IQ section of your camera right here. Keep in mind that many of the settings located in the IQ section of your menu apply only to JPEG files and not to RAW images. Now, before explaining the D-Range priority tool, I should also mention the tone curve tool. This setting is located in the IQ section right here and allows you to apply a targeted tone curve to your image. If you're using an XT3 or earlier camera, it's actually two separate menu items called highlight tone and shadow tone. What this setting allows you to do is either increase or decrease the
1:31 contrast in the shadows or the highlights area of your image. It also has the effect of either making them harsher or softer. It's very similar to using the targeted tone curve adjustment tool in Lightroom. right here. As you are increasing the numerical values of the highlights and the shadows, you're basically increasing the contrast of the scene. And on the Fujifilm XT4 camera, you can actually see visually that you are making an S-curve. Now, just like every person on planet Earth would love to find a duffel bag filled with unmarked $20 bills, every photographer on planet Earth would love to be sure that they are getting the maximum amount of dynamic range possible out of their images at the time they're taking their shot. You cannot always rely on your
2:18 exposure meter to accurately prevent you from blowing out your highlights. As I mentioned in my previous video, the dynamic range settings feature is there to protect your highlights, and the shadows and highlights feature is there to help you fine-tune the contrast often found in your shadow areas. And now, drum roll please, the D-Range priority tool is there to take both of these features, the dynamic range tool and the highlights and shadows tool, and combine them into one tool to roll them all. In other words, you're getting two features for the price of one. There are four settings available to you in the D-Range priority tool. The first setting is off. When you have the D-Range priority setting tool to off, well, the D-Range
3:05 priority setting is off, right? Weak means that your camera is going to apply a small amount of this setting, and you would want to use it for what Fujifilm calls moderately high contrast scenes. Now, in order to set it to weak, you must have a minimum ISO value of 320. Strong gives you the full amount, and Fujifilm recommends using strong for high contrast scenes. In order to set it to strong, though, you do have to have a minimum ISO value of 640. Now, auto is interesting because basically, you're giving control of your scene to the camera, and the camera is going to choose whether it will decide on weak or strong. In most of my testing, I found that by choosing auto, the camera seemed
3:51 to be using strong most of the time. Something else to be aware of, whenever you have the D-range priority tool enabled, your Fujifilm camera will automatically disable the regular dynamic range tool as well as the highlights and shadows tone curve tools. Now, let's take a look at some examples. Now, here's a high contrast scene that if you look at the exposure meter, the camera says that it's right at zero or well exposed. However, as you can see by the histogram, the highlights in the background curtains are clipping. Here's the JPEG file in Lightroom with no adjustments at all. Now, have a look at an image shot with the exact same camera settings, only this time I set the D-range priority to strong. And as you can see, it's almost like I have a
4:36 little gremlin, you know, that lives inside the camera that the minute I went to take a shot, pulled out a copy of Lightroom, cranked down the highlight slider, and cranked up the shadows slider, and then save the JPEG to the SD card. Here's an example of the same scene, only shot with the D-range priority tool set to weak. So, have a look now at the difference between D-Range priority set to strong and what the image looked like without any D-Range priority applied at all. And you can just see without me even zooming in, there is way more dynamic range in the D-range priority set to strong. Now, even though the ISO values in both images are 640, there is more noise in the shadows in the D-range set to strong. You see that here compared to here. I am zoomed in though at 400%.
5:24 Here I am zoomed in at 200%. And I can still see it. So, the big question of the day is how does using the D-Range priority tool compare to just using the dynamic range setting? Okay, have a look at this. The shot on the left was taken with the dynamic range setting set to 400%. The shot on the right was taken with the dange priority tool set to strong. Now, as you can see on the left, the dynamic range set to 400% did save my highlights. You see that right there? But have a look at how much better it looks with the D-Range priority tool set. By adjusting that additional contrast, it was able to bring out those additional details in the JPEG image. And what it did most likely was apply a dynamic range setting of 400% just like
6:12 the image on the left, but it also decreased the contrast in my shadows considerably. Have a look at this area right here. Now, if I look at the two RAW files, the dynamic range 400% version on the left and the D-Range priority strong on the right, they look very similar in Lightroom. However, have a look at them when I bring them into Capture 1. The one on the left is the dynamic range 400%. The one on the right is the D-range priority set to strong. Look at the difference between the two of them. We are looking at RAW files here untouched in Capture 1. I would love to spend a lot more time on this and apply some highlight and shadow adjustments and see ultimately how that
6:58 stacks up with Lightroom with these two settings. And this whole thing between Capture 1 and Lightroom and bringing these RAW files really makes you think that there is such a difference in how software translates raw files into images that you can edit and adjust. particularly when you are applying certain settings on the Fujifilm camera. As for myself, in high contrast scenes, if I were to use the D-range priority tool, I would pretty much use it in 400%. The only thing about it is that it does kind of give a a little bit of a muddy look to the images I've noticed. But again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you'll have to do your own tests and see what you think of using it. Well, there you go. And there's a lot more that we can discuss about
7:44 dynamic range, believe me. But I have to go myself because, and here's the announcement. Next week, starting Monday, I'm going to be on a jury. I'm not showing up for jury duty. I'm on the jury. I was picked and I'm on the jury. You're probably going to get another classic PAL detect next week as well. The reason that I'm doing that is because if I start trying to cram these videos around this, I would be annoyed at being there. I'd be just wanting to get back here, feeling frustrated, needing to get that video out and all of that kind of stuff. And honestly, I think I'd be a less effective juror. And so I made the deliberate decision not to do a video this week. And I will not most likely be doing a video next week. If I can kind of convince the lawyers
8:30 and the judge and the defendants to speed it up a little bit next week. If we can be done sooner, then we might have a new video. We'll see. And I think you're going to like the one that I have planned for you. Anyhow, thank you so much for watching. And I hope you found today's video helpful or at least entertaining. And if you did, be sure to give it the like and subscribe. I am going to be signing off now, but have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you in a new video very soon. Take care. [Music]
