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What is Dynamic Range?

Dynamic range is he range of light intensities present in a scene or on a display:

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          : Maximum possible photon energy (full potential well)

          : Minimum detectable photon energy (in presence of noise)

Capturing High Dynaic Range with Low Dynamic Range Sensor

It's possible to capture different parts of the real world with low dynamic range devices by changing the exposure time.  Here is the same scene taken at nearly the same time, but with different exposures. The photograph on the left captures the details of the skyline, but the exposure time is too short for the details of the scene to register.  The image on the right shows the details of the scene, but the pixels in the sky are now saturated, and the tree line is nearly lost.

1/4000 s

1/13 s

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Sensor Dynamic Range

The visible world covers a high dynamic range.  Here are some typical sensor ranges, the highest being that of our eyes.  With our smart phones and digital cameras, we can hardly capture what the human eye can capture.

Courtesy of Mohit Gupta

© 2018 by Samareh Shahmohammadi. 

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