HDR or D lighting?

dachshund

Senior Member
A real rookie question here, what would be the determining factor in whether to utilize HDR as opposed to D lighting? I mean what situation favors the use of one over the other, they seem to be quite similar, a means to deal with high contrast situations.
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
HDR is best utilized with the use of a tripod and a stationary subject since multiple images are combined into one. D lighting is best used when there is motion in the shot or if shot hand held since its a single image that the camera then does the work to bring out the details that would have otherwise been lost. Also, D lighting is only available if shooting JPG only. I shoot RAW so I haven't used D lighting in quite a while. When I was learning the basics of exposure, I would use HDR to give myself a better chance of getting the shot I wanted but found I am able to make most if not all the adjustments in Lightroom.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
HDR is for when the dynamic range of a scene exceeds the ability of the camera to capture all the brights and darks. Active-D lighting gives you more detail in the shadowed areas of a scene.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
A real rookie question here, what would be the determining factor in whether to utilize HDR as opposed to D lighting? I mean what situation favors the use of one over the other, they seem to be quite similar, a means to deal with high contrast situations.

Twisted and Hark gave solid advice. I'm curious where you are going with your work, shooting Jpeg active "D" vs. raw HDR and its possibilities are very distinct. Snapshots vs. an expression of art through your camera? Tell us more!
 

dachshund

Senior Member
Twisted and Hark gave solid advice. I'm curious where you are going with your work, shooting Jpeg active "D" vs. raw HDR and its possibilities are very distinct. Snapshots vs. an expression of art through your camera? Tell us more!

I’m not particularly interested in producing artistic effects. I’m more interested in producing accurate presentations of scenes i see.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Also, D lighting is only available if shooting JPG only. I shoot RAW so I haven't used D lighting in quite a while.

Hey TT, quick question: I pretty much exclusively shoot RAW now, and after every shot my D5500 has the menu option to do an in-camera retouching. One of the retouching options is "D-Lighting", and I can choose low, medium, or high values to apply. Is it converting my pictures to .jpeg to do that, then back to RAW - which is how my pictures download off my card whether or not I've done the retouching?
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
@Dangerspouse
Appologies, I was trying to go off memory, I had to check my menu for a refresher. HDR is disabled with RAW, not D lighting. I have no idea what goes on inside the camera to make D lighting do its thing. I would think its like pulling the shadows slider in Lightroom but still in camera.
 

hark

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Hey TT, quick question: I pretty much exclusively shoot RAW now, and after every shot my D5500 has the menu option to do an in-camera retouching. One of the retouching options is "D-Lighting", and I can choose low, medium, or high values to apply. Is it converting my pictures to .jpeg to do that, then back to RAW - which is how my pictures download off my card whether or not I've done the retouching?

If I am not mistaken, there is supposed to be an embedded jpeg in every NEF. Maybe someone can confirm the info. So any changes made in camera would be applied to the jpeg. What you see on the rear screen is the embedded jpeg - at least that's always been my understanding.
@FredKingston or @nickt any confirmation on a jpeg being embedded in a NEF?
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Cindy is correct. In addition to the metadata, a NEF file contains a thumbnail jpg image along with a full Jpg image... The thumbnail for quick viewing by viewers that can read it.

There are descriptions for both HDR and D-lighting on Nikon's web site. The largest difference is the HDR is only applied to the Jpg images, and is NOT stored in RAW images, and therefore is greyed out and not available with the RAW settings. The D-Lighting setting simply changes the light meter reading in the way it measures the contrast.
 

nickt

Senior Member
I agree with Cindy and Fred.

Some other tidbits. I'll just speak of my d7200 here. There is ACTIVE D Lighting in the shooting menu and there is D Lighting in the retouch.
Retouch is after the fact. Regardless if you shoot in raw or jpg, it makes a new jpg with the d light changes. Raw and its embedded jpg are not affected at all.

Active D Lighting in the shooting menu does the adjustment in real time. There is always talk about whether it affects the raw file. It does affect the raw file but not in the obvious way. There are levels of active d lighting. Low, normal, high, extra high. At low, there is no change to exposure. At the other levels, the exposure is altered along with applying the active d process. It under exposes the image to various degrees as you advance above 'low'. So even though this works in Raw, you are getting a different exposure than you would have gotten is active d lighting were turned off which might not be what you want. If you shoot a raw series at all 4 active d levels, you will see the expected effect in Nikon software. You might also note the exposure changes. If you look at those shots in LR or PS, you will see the images getting darker because the exposure was altered but you are not getting the rest of the active d light adjustments.
 
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