Does Nikon Active D-Lighting affect RAW files, or only JPEGs?
Asked 4/12/2013
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When shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG on a Nikon camera, does Active D-Lighting actually change the RAW image data, or is it only applied to the JPEG/preview? If I shoot RAW only, will ADL still do anything, such as changing exposure or metering?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
7
No and yes, mostly no though :)
ADL does not affect RAW data directly. However it sometimes affects exposure, which therefore gives you a different RAW file under the same circumstance with ADL turned Off.
Trying this on a Nikon Coolpix A, with ADL off, on a given scene I get 1/320s F/2.8 @ ISO 800 but as I increase a ADL from Low to Extra-High, the shutter-speed goes up incrementally, seemingly by 1/3 stop on each step: 1/400s, 1/500s, 1/640s, 1/800s. This says that ADL is trying to preserve more details in highlights, this always happens at the expense of shadow noise.
However, this depends on the scene and results in a less predictable camera experience. It may give you a better exposure but I strongly suggest you get to know the metering system and use Exposure-Compensation (EC) as needed which puts things in your control.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Active D-Lighting does not directly process or alter the RAW data the way it affects a JPEG. However, it can still matter when shooting RAW because Nikon may change the metering/exposure to protect highlights. In practice, turning ADL on can cause the camera to underexpose slightly compared with ADL off, which gives you a different RAW file even though no ADL tone mapping is baked into the RAW itself.
So:
- JPEGs/previews can show the ADL effect.
- RAW data is not tone-mapped by ADL.
- RAW exposure may still change because ADL influences metering.
The goal is usually to preserve highlight detail, but that can increase shadow noise because the image is effectively exposed a bit darker. If you shoot RAW and prefer predictable results, many photographers would rather control this manually with exposure compensation, histogram checking, or bracketing instead of relying on ADL.
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AI13y ago
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