07-25-2017, 04:07 PM
You have to be careful when discussing contrast and microcontrast. Essentially, contrast is about dynamic range, and/or the contrast slope in a picture, and microcontrast is indeed about the ability to determine the difference, or rather, borders, between two different lines, adjacent to each other. And in the latter case, there are more things at issue, namely resolution, and MTF percentages.
In the past, we used Rayleigh criteria as the point to determine where we could still distinguish between two adjacent lines, i.e, contrast of 9%, whereas most modern lens reviews use MTF-50 or 50%. That is high contrast, and one can generally get a lot more from a photograph than the almost binary approach presented in reviews.
IMO, if you do have a lens with a decent resolution, you have a lot of headroom to play around with to get optimal microcontrast, i.e., plenty of details, without affecting overall contrast too much. Essentially, you'd have to determine which areas you find important, and process those accordingly, IOW, do not process the entire photograph as a whole, but do so for individual areas for optimum contrast and microcontrast.
Effectively, this more or less boils down to applying a Zone-type system to different parts of a photograph, with burning and dodging. Similarly, you could selectively up "clarity", or just make the colour more vibrant in specific spots. This is why I really like the (Google) Nik software tools (free). You could, f.e., treat a bird's feathers differently to the surrounds or environment, and that really works well.
All you need to do with your RAWs is to process them for an optimal DR, as you see fit, and then process them as mentioned above - in the end it is what you as a photographer see in a picture, and how you see the end result.
It is a bit more work than following a standard process, but to me it is worth it, especially for images I want to print (DR of only 6 in print).
For test cases I can only look once I have my desktop up and running again after its registry got badly corrupted by a software update, I am afraid. It'll take too much time otherwise.
HTH, kind regards, Wim
In the past, we used Rayleigh criteria as the point to determine where we could still distinguish between two adjacent lines, i.e, contrast of 9%, whereas most modern lens reviews use MTF-50 or 50%. That is high contrast, and one can generally get a lot more from a photograph than the almost binary approach presented in reviews.
IMO, if you do have a lens with a decent resolution, you have a lot of headroom to play around with to get optimal microcontrast, i.e., plenty of details, without affecting overall contrast too much. Essentially, you'd have to determine which areas you find important, and process those accordingly, IOW, do not process the entire photograph as a whole, but do so for individual areas for optimum contrast and microcontrast.
Effectively, this more or less boils down to applying a Zone-type system to different parts of a photograph, with burning and dodging. Similarly, you could selectively up "clarity", or just make the colour more vibrant in specific spots. This is why I really like the (Google) Nik software tools (free). You could, f.e., treat a bird's feathers differently to the surrounds or environment, and that really works well.
All you need to do with your RAWs is to process them for an optimal DR, as you see fit, and then process them as mentioned above - in the end it is what you as a photographer see in a picture, and how you see the end result.
It is a bit more work than following a standard process, but to me it is worth it, especially for images I want to print (DR of only 6 in print).
For test cases I can only look once I have my desktop up and running again after its registry got badly corrupted by a software update, I am afraid. It'll take too much time otherwise.
HTH, kind regards, Wim
Gear: Canon EOS R with 3 primes and 2 zooms, 4 EF-R adapters, Canon EOS 5 (analog), 9 Canon EF primes, a lone Canon EF zoom, 2 extenders, 2 converters, tubes; Olympus OM-D 1 Mk II & Pen F with 12 primes, 6 zooms, and 3 Metabones EF-MFT adapters ....