The Fujifilm Feature That Changes EVERYTHING (but no one knows about it)

0:09 [music] >> One, go. >> [music] [music] >> Now that you've seen all these photos, was there anything that looked a bit [music] suspicious to you, especially regarding settings and even more specifically regarding the use of ISO? Well, all of these photos have been taken at ISO 500, even though I could probably also have taken them at a base ISO, but I decided not to. And the reason why I shot everything at ISO 500, and honestly 99% of my photography shot at ISO 500, is due to a specific setting

0:55 that we'll be talking about in today's video, which is called dynamic range settings. So, I committed the past 2 years to figure out what is even going on in these dynamic range settings, and I will tell you today why I think they're insanely powerful if used correctly. So, I would say, let's get started. So, in order for everybody to be on the same page, what is dynamic range? And dynamic range is effectively the brightness difference between the brightest parts in your photo and the darkest parts in your photo. And the bigger the difference between the brightest and the darkest parts in your photo, the bigger the dynamic range of your scene. And the bigger the dynamic range of your scene, the more issues your camera might have to properly expose both the darkest parts of your photo and the brightest parts of your

1:41 photo in one single photo. And this is exactly where Fujifilm's dynamic range settings come in because they give you a properly exposed file in camera without having to stitch together different exposures. And dynamic range settings in Fuji cameras come in three different versions. The first one is DR 100, which basically doesn't add any additional dynamic range to your scene beyond the dynamic range that your sensor already has naturally. Then you have dynamic range 200 that enables you to effectively get one more stop of dynamic range, but it also requires you to push your ISO one more stop. So, if your base ISO for instance 125, like on my XT5 for instance, then you would have to shoot at ISO 250 to unlock DR 200.

2:30 And then there is dynamic range 400, which is the mode that I use most of the time, which gives you an additional two stops of dynamic range, but again requires you to raise your ISO by two stops. So, instead of ISO 125, you raise it by one stop, 250, and by a second stop, ISO 500, ISO 500, in order to unlock this dynamic range 400 feature. But what exactly is happening here? How do dynamic range settings give us more dynamic range, or do they even give us more dynamic range in the first place? Let me illustrate that for you using dynamic range 400 to just make the effect very clear. So, as already mentioned, DR 400 gives you an additional two stops of dynamic range, which is not technically correct because it actually just gives you an additional two stops of highlight protection. So,

3:16 the brightest parts in the image are going to be protected, preventing them from blowing out. And how does the camera do that? Well, the camera underexposes your photo by two stops, giving us these two additional stops of highlight protection, and then, and that's super important, it boosts the shadows of your scene by two stops. So, it just makes them brighter in image processing by an equivalent of two stops, equivalent of ISO 500. So, this why I think this was relatively intuitive. So, the camera underexposes your photo, but then boosts the shadows by these two ISO stops in order to give you protected highlights, but also well-exposed shadows in one exposure. But here's the confusing part about it,

4:01 which is what the live view actually shows you because there is a little bit of a flaw in this feature, if you ask me. And the problem here is your camera's live view. If you expose for the shadows, the highlights in your live view look blown out. But when you actually take the photo, the highlights are brought down by two stops and are now well-exposed. The important implication here is that you have to expose your DR files for the shadows because, first of all, they already boosted by two stops, while the highlights already protected by DR 400. If you were to underexpose your shadow, they would become insanely noisy when trying to recover them in post. Why? Well, because they already exposed at

4:48 ISO 500, and you exacerbate that already existing noise when trying to bring them up. In a nutshell, expose for your shadows because DR 400 has got you covered for those highlights. And of course, dynamic range settings are not going to make your highlights immune to them blowing out, but these dynamic range settings allow you to save so much highlight information that I honestly have just had one single occasion where my highlights were totally gone, which is when I was shooting right into the sun. Next, I would like to address a few misconceptions of dynamic range settings. The first one that I hear a lot is, "Oh, dynamic range settings only apply to JPEGs." And the short answer to this is, "No." It also applies to RAWs. And the long answer is that dynamic range settings

5:35 are first of all being interpreted by the camera, so even the RAW will have these dynamic range settings applied. So, the file is going to be underexposed, and in processing, the shadows will be lifted, but also in post-processing, and in my case, Lightroom, will actually know that I have applied dynamic range settings and will automatically give me this properly exposed file without me having to do anything. The second misconception is that people argue that dynamic range settings do not work because they require ISO 500. You get worse dynamic range at ISO 500 than at the base ISO of your camera, and this is going to give you a grainier photo, right? But if you were to do the same without dynamic range settings, so you would just take your photo, underexpose it, and then later in post bring up these shadows,

6:20 you would get an equivalent amount of noise. So, the files dynamic range settings and the files that you've underexposed without dynamic range settings will give you very, very similar degree of noise. And finally, let's talk about when these dynamic range settings are most applicable and why I honestly always shoot in dynamic range 400 no matter where I go. So, first of all, obviously, dynamic range settings are the most suitable if you shoot high dynamic range scenes. So, if you have for instance a sunset with a bright sky and very dark shadows, then it makes total sense because the camera underexposes, makes sure that your highlights are properly exposed, and it then boosts the shadows, giving you a very, very nicely exposed file. The second scenario where dynamic range

7:05 settings are absolutely wonderful is for night photography. The problem at night is that you shoot at higher ISOs, and blown-out highlights may stay irrecoverable. And dynamic range settings fix that issue by underexposing your shot by two stops, protecting those highlights, and then boosting the shadows by the same amount of stops. So, if your photo was taken at ISO 3200, then the camera actually underexposes by two stop, so the photo is actually taken at ISO 800, and then it boosts the shadows by two stops to an equivalent of that ISO 3200 that you see on the back LCD screen. And there is honestly only one scenario that I can think of where dynamic range settings are, let's say, less suitable, which is flat scenes. So, where basically everything is evenly lit.

7:52 Imagine for instance a cloudy sky and just very diffused light. Why? Well, because there is no bright highlights to protect, which then just leads to an unnecessarily noisy photo because now effectively the entirety of the scene is exposed at ISO 500. And what I do in that case is that I still shoot at DR 400, but I push my entire scene to the right, into the highlights, knowing that the camera will bring down the entire shot by two stops, reflecting the real exposure, and giving me effectively a noise-free photo. And honestly, this might have been the most complicated video for me to make because these settings are fiddly. There is no scientific research or like facts that I can rely on because again, Fujifilm doesn't tell you what these settings do. But if you ever wondered

8:38 why I shoot all my photos at ISO 500, this is one of the reasons, but not the only reason. And I actually made an entire video on all the reasons why I shoot at ISO 500, so feel free to check it out right here. And with that being said, thank you so, [music] so much for tuning in today. If you have any more questions, let them down below and I'll try to answer [music] them as soon as I can. And with that being said, I hope to see you next week's video. Bye.