RAF underexposed in Affinty Photo

[jw432]

I find when I look at my images on the camera (evf and lcd) and in Fast stone they look good.  When I load them into Affinity Photo they are underexposed.  This might be an Affinity Photo issue.  Are you finding similar?  I also have Dynamic Range set to 400, would that cause this?  Maybe I need to check with Affinity Photo on their software and compatibility with Fuji RAF.

[Herco]

Though I don't use Affinity Photo and I therefore can't check it, it is most likely caused by the Dynamic Range setting. By setting DR to 400% you're essentially underexposing by 2 stops. I know that Capture One reads the RAF-file and adjusts accordingly. It's very likely that Affinity doesn't do that. Whether it's for all Fujifilm cameras or only for this one (GFX50R?), I can't tell. RAF-files from the GFX cameras are different from the X-Trans cameras. Even between the different models there are variations, hence that software specifies not the sensor type/generation but specifically the camera model. 

[jw432]

Thanks, Herco - I suspected something like that.  I have both FastStone and Nomacs image viewers and they show the image as I would expect.  It's only Affinity Photo that has the issue, I'll contact them.

Regarding Dynamic Range, it's one of the least used settings for me, I usually just use auto.  However I generally shoot manual mode and like to control all the settings, with an understanding of what I am choosing and why.  I see on the GFX 50R that when I lower iso to 320, dynamic range is reduced from 400 to 200 and I receive a warning, or yellow dynamic range icon.

Can you (or anyone) either point me to an article or explain the choices involved in picking a dynamic range?  Historically I tend to shoot landscapes with the lowest ISO possible, using a tripod.  Are there merits to shooting landscapes with a higher iso, say 400 with a 400 dynamic range?  If dynamic range is simply changing the exposure why do I even need it?  I can already control the exposure.

I think I generally understand the concept of dynamic range, but I am definitely lost when I hear that it just changes the exposure.   What am I missing?

[Herco]

Rico Pfirstinger wrote some books on Fuji X-cameras incl. a few pages on DR. It's in all of his X-pert Tips books. Furthermore, cambridgeincolour.com has extensive explanation pages on all sorts of photographic topics. Just search on their site for dynamic range. The key is that you cannot correct blown-out highlights but it is easy to correct deep shadows in post processing. Cameras have two ways of addressing this: either an HDR-feature or an extended DR feature. 

The extended DR-setting on the camera works for jpegs. It typically underexposes your raw file by 1 or 2 stops and than with the in-camera raw conversion to jpeg it leaves the highlights as is and amplifies only the midtones and shadows to produce a jpeg with detailed highlights (because under exposed) and nice blacks and greys (corrected in camera). Effectively its 1 extra stop of DR in practice.

The HDR feature actually creates multiple images with an exposure bracket and combines these images into one, using the highlights of the underexposed image and the shadows and midtones of the other images. HDR can also be used for raw images in post.

As for your typical situation, you only use raw-files and no jpeg I believe. Best approach IMO is to leave the DR setting to 100% and do the exposure correction in Affinity Photo. In order to do that you should set the live view function on to see the effect of the exposure on screen and switch on the histogram. Than set the exposure in such a way that the highlights (right part of the histogram) do not blow out. So stay within the border of the histogram at the right. The shadows might get blocked and the midtones way darker than you want, but that is easily corrected in post with the Shadow and Midtone sliders.

By using this method you can use the base ISO of the camera (ISO100 in case of the GFX50R) which is always preferable in landscape photography. The fact that below ISO320 the camera limits you to DR 200% is because it needs 'room' to do the corrections.  From 320 to 2 stops down is ISO80 which the camera cannot handle (ISO100 is the lowest) without trics like extended low ISO which you should only use as a last resort.