Contrast range sounds technical at first – but it is a very central point in photography. In short, it’s about how much difference in brightness your camera can display in an image.
The greater the difference between light and dark in the image – without losing details – the more realistic and “real” the photo appears.
How much contrast can a picture actually show?
The contrast range (also known as dynamic range) describes the difference between the brightest and darkest areas of the subject.
The whole thing can be expressed as a ratio: A value of 1:4000 means that the brightest spot is 4000 times brighter than the darkest.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?
But that’s just about what a good black-and-white negative film used to be able to do.
For comparison:
The human eye achieves a dynamic range of around 1:8000 to 1:16000 – in other words, twice to four times as much. And even that is not always enough on a sunny day.
Do you know the feeling when you walk out of the blazing sun into a dark room and see nothing at first? Exactly – that’s your eyes adjusting to the extreme contrast.
- The maximum difference in brightness between bright sunshine and pitch-black night is around 23 f-stops. Our eyes can cope with a maximum of 20 f-stops and are also extremely flexible.
F-stops – a practical measure for photographers
In photography, differences in contrast are often calculated in f-stops:
Each f-stop means a doubling or halving of the amount of light.
There is a difference of around 23 f-stops between bright sunshine and pitch-black night – that is the maximum contrast we can experience in nature.
Our eyes can see about 20 of them – pretty impressive!
Cameras, on the other hand, are somewhat more limited – especially if you shoot in JPEG. RAW files offer significantly more leeway in terms of brightness gradations.
What does that mean for your photos?
A photo is always just a snapshot. You cannot – like your eye – constantly readjust, see brighter or darker.
The camera has to decide on a brightness range – and this is where the contrast range comes into play.
Depending on how you expose your image, it can happen that:
- bright areas “fray” → i.e. no longer contain any pattern
- dark areas “drown” → i.e. turn completely black
And then you as a photographer have to decide:
What is more important to me – the details in the highlights or in the shadows?
What can you do?
- Selectively underexpose or overexpose, depending on which image information you want to save
- Shooting RAW – you get more “reserves” when editing
- Use the histogram to see if you are losing highlights or shadows
- Or: HDR (High Dynamic Range)
Several photos with different exposures are later combined on the computer to cover the full range.
This goes beyond the scope here, but is an exciting technique for extreme lighting situations
Conclusion: Contrast range determines how vivid your image looks
A photo can be technically perfectly exposed – and still look flat if the contrast range is not right.
On the other hand, a deliberately reduced contrast can also be a stylistic device.
The important thing is:
You need to know what your camera can do – and what you want to do with it creatively.
The contrast range is a tool here. And as always, the better you understand it, the more freely you can decide how your image should look.
