Fuji XE1 settings for dr when shooting in manual mode.

[ross@hiroshima]

I have recently started shooting in manual mode as I seem to have better control over blown highlights, using the histogram and being able to view speed and shutter without half pressing shutter. My in camera tone settings have been highlights -1 shadows -1. and dr at 100.
However not sure if I should be increasing the dr as, to my limited understanding, dr does the same, protects the highlights and lifts the shadows ( as long as iso is set correctly).
Just wanted to know what other manual mode shooters use.
Thanks

 

[Amin]

@ross@hiroshima - are you shooting raw or jpeg?

 

[flysurfer]

If you already protect the highlights in your exposure, there's no need to do it again with the DR function. Of course, it all depends on the JPEG results you want to achieve. The DR function will do the tone-mapping in camera for you that you have to do for yourself in an external RAW converter.

 

[ross@hiroshima]

Thanks to you both. I am shooting raw with jpegs. I try to avoid spending time at the pc with raw converters. Only if there is a shot thats worth framing I have Capture 1 pro and Silky pix pro. Rico, I was just wondering if the in camera dr method would do a better job than me adjusting the tone controls. I am well past retirement age so the brain may not do as good a job as XE1.
Have learnt a lot from your many posts Rico and has been a great help. Uploaded a photo that I am happy with. Appreciate any feed back.

 

[flysurfer]

Silkypix is rather bad at recovering highlights, that's only to improve in version 7, which is now out in a Japanese beta version. Silkypix has some HDR functionality, though, but it looks a bit artificial. C1 has better means to recover highlights and can also lift shadows in an adaptive way, so it works but certainly looks different from what the camera's converter does. In the end, it's a matter of taste, which processing you prefer. As usual, every converter is different.

For the in-camera DR function look with an external converter, Iridient Developer is the best option I know of.