Does anyone know what the the "film latitude" is for digital cameras?

Slides - 3 stops
Color Print - 5 stops
B&W Print - 7 stops
Imaging Chip - ???

CCD = Narrow.

I couldnt find any details on exact stops but by the sounds it might not be counted in full stops.

I hope this helps.

what is CCD?

Easy question 1st:

A CCD is a type of imaging sensor it stands for Charge Coupled Device. It is the type of sensor used by the majority of digital cameras, scanners, and video cameras. Some cameras are now using CMOS sensor (like cannon)

Hard question next:

I may have a sort of answer.

Exposure Latitude should be equal to Density range (Dynamic Range)

The book I have defines exposure latitude as the ability to reproduce a wide range of subject contrast of brightness.

Density range is the difference between the highlight point (white point) and shadow point (black point) of an image. The larger the number the more contrast there is.

According to my book most transparencies have a maximum density range of 3.1 while CCD scanners have a maximum range of 4.2 and average of 3.5. Digital Cameras would use similar CCD technology as the CCD scanners.

So that should mean that digital cameras should have a larger density range than transparency film therefore more exposure latitude.

Now with a digital camera what this would mean is that even if you had the exposure set wrong the camera would still capture the colour information. The image would still look incorrectly exposed but you would be able to adjust it in Photoshop to a correct exposure because the information would be in the digital file.

An example would be a dark under exposed image. Even though the image looks dark if you zoom in there will be detail evident in the shadows rather than it just being a solid black.

My book lists exposure latitudes as follows:

Transparency= +-1/3 to 1/2 stop
Colour Negative= +- 2 stops
Doesn't list for B&W

Based on this I would put a digital camera at +- 1/2 to 1 stop but I may be way off


freakyclean

Wow, thanks for taking the time to post that freakyclean, that is very interesting. :)

Thanks for the research freaky.