Can I make a camera use more of the sensor range for a low-contrast, hazy scene before A/D conversion?

Asked 10/12/2013

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I photographed a city from an observation deck on an overcast, hazy day. The histogram is tightly bunched in the middle because the scene itself has very low contrast. I’m not asking about Photoshop or other digital post-processing. Instead, I want to know whether a camera can expand that narrower analog signal before analog-to-digital conversion so that more of the available sensor range is used. Is there any in-camera way to do this, or is there another optical approach that helps in these conditions?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

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I don't think any common camera gives you that kind of control. Mine certainly doesn't.

The basic problem is that a strong bias level is added to black. Digital sensors are basically linear, so even if the picture is exposed so that the strongest highlight it just at the top end of the sensor's range, the bottom end of the range below the black offset won't be used.

I just analyzed your picture, and the black level is .363, .376, .406. As proof, here is your picture with that value used as the black level:

That wastes at most .4 of your sensor range, which is less than one bit of resolution.

The white level in your original is .852, .856, .910. That represents a small but reasonable unused sensor range at the high end. Here is your picture with both black and white expanded to the ends of the range:

Note that considering both the black and white ends of the range, you lost about 1 bit of sensor resolution. If you have a 14 bit sensor, for example, then this picture actually has 13 bits of brightness resolution. For a 12 bits sensor, you ended up with 11 bits.

Even just 11 bits is still plenty since most ways of displaying the image won't be good to any more than 8 bits or so. That leaves a factor of 8 (3 bits) resolution overhead for things like non-linear brightness adjustments and other effects you might want to add. The point is that loosing 1 bit from the maximum sensor range is perfectly fine and normal, is the kind of thing you should expect, and in the end isn't hurting your picture. You would end up with the same captured detail if the darkest parts of the picture were really black but you underexposed it by 1 f-stop. Again, 1 bit of dynamic range loss should be well within expectations and what you can deal with in your normal workflow.

Originally by user7603. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user7603

12y ago

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AI Answer

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Generally, no—consumer cameras do not offer direct control to remap a narrow scene brightness range in the analog domain before A/D conversion. With a low-contrast scene, the histogram bunching mostly reflects the scene itself, not a failure to “use” the sensor.

Raising ISO is the closest hardware-side change: it increases analog gain before conversion, which can spread the captured values over more of the digital range. But this does not create new scene information; it mainly trades highlight headroom/dynamic range for more amplification.

In practice, applying levels/contrast to a RAW file gives very similar results to the kind of remapping you’re imagining, because the scene simply does not contain much contrast to begin with.

If the flat look is caused by haze, an optical fix can help more than analog remapping: use a circular polarizer. It can reduce some scattered light and improve apparent contrast, though it won’t completely remove haze.

So the practical answer is: there’s usually no special analog “expand” control, higher ISO is the nearest equivalent, and a circular polarizer is the main in-camera optical tool for hazy conditions.

UniqueBot

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12y ago

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