[HDR-photo] HDR as the new digital negative

[BillHughey]

Check out the PDC group at Stanford. 
http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~abbas/group/imaging.html
ex: "10,000 Frames/s CMOS Digital Pixel Sensor with Pixel-level Memory"  
2001
"Synthesis of High Dynamic Range Motion Blur Free Image From Multiple 
Captures"  2003

 They published papers on programmable digital camera technology up till 
about 2003 with money from Kodak, Canon, Hp and Agilent.  Their research 
in part was in how to generate HDR straight from the camera with Ghost 
and Motion Blur removal.  Kinda tells you that the camera companies will 
be giving us more new RAW/HDR formats over the next 10 years.

I am not convinced though that we will still be re-converting our old 
RAW images ten years from now.  As older RAW formats are abandoned for 
newer HDR/RAW, will anyone be improving the older conversion programs?  
Maybe storing post RAW conversions as DNG for long term archiving?

listmail at mab3d.com wrote:

> On Feb 8, 2007, at 2:40 PM, BillHughey wrote:
>
>> Still the question from the other thread today is whether  operations 
>> like Chromatic Aberration  reduction are associative  over the 
>> process of  creating the HDR image from the RAW images.   Should it 
>> be applied before or after combining into HDR, does it  matter?   I 
>> think the question was also whether it should be  applied over the 
>> range of +/- ev settings?
>
>
> Just converting the RAW data into any viewable image format  
> (demosaicing, color interpolation, brightness control) can be done in  
> many different ways, so you are already affecting the pixels (input  
> for a later HDR) by choosing ACR, Aperture, RAWshooter, Bibble, etc.  
> - or even Photomatix with its built in RAW decoder. That much is  
> unavoidable, and variable. So any "user controllable" factors like  
> exposure compensation, WB, CA correction, vignetting, and even  
> removing "purple fringes" from bad highlight interpolation should be  
> consistent across all images if they are going into a single HDR. In  
> most cases, correcting or removing these in the HDR file is either  
> impossible or impractical.
>
> Add something like noise reduction on top of it (which can, in some  
> cases, yield vastly different detail results from exposure to  
> exposure) and you can really get very different HDRs based on these  
> compounding decisions. Even different HDR construction methods will  
> affect the output file (compare the HDRs produced from Photomatix and  
> Photoshop with the same set of processed TIFFs!). Of course, this is  
> all just part of a personal "special sauce" (as RH puts it) you can  
> come up with to make compelling HDRs, but it is still many steps away  
> from the "raw ingredients." This is why I see the camera RAW data as  
> the closest thing to a "negative" I have access to today, lumps and  
> all. Of course, I would prefer to have an HDR negative, but that's a  
> different picture from a future camera.
>
>> As far as the PITA of laptop assisted AEB, expect to see smaller  
>> devices to appear in the next few years that can control as well as  
>> download from a camera.  So it will be more like two camera sized  
>> devices dongeled.
>
>
> I know some folks who already have "portable" HDR capture and control  
> devices which are just Sharp Zaurus' running gPhoto ( http:// 
> gphoto.sourceforge.net/ ), but for any portable device (Linux PDA  
> like the Zaurus, Windows Mobile handhelds, etc.), having a USB "host"  
> controller in the device is the linchpin to control most cameras. But  
> again, my preference for the speed and ease (and to reach the non- 
> techie folks) is to have wide-range bracketing control added to  
> consumer cameras themselves - going beyond simple 4ev AEB. I expect  
> to see actual HDR capture in a few years once "convergence" starts in  
> earnest, but that's only once the "megapixel wars" have simmered down  
> and HDR processing gets more mature. My bet is on Sony being first,  
> of all camera makers - since their vid-cams are already angling in  
> this direction, and they have the money and reasons (marketshare  
> gains, distinction) to do it.
>
> Fun stuff, but today you cannot go much further back in your capture  
> pipeline than the RAW file from your chosen camera manufacturer.  
> Everything after getting the RAW off the card involves variable  
> voodoo from lots of different folks, including the HDR creation. I  
> suppose DNG is a better container for the RAW data, but that also  
> relies on DNG not becoming abandonware. When the camera saves JPEG- 
> HDR (with an uncompressed EXR option, of course), and the camera  
> maker has "optimized" everything in the HDR creation for their sensor  
> and processor, then we'll have a new long-term "negative" to rely on  
> (and to debate over).
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
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