Why This Guy Shoots ISO 500 Most of the Time — And Says You Should Too (If You Shoot Fujifilm)
go to minute 10:28 of the video for the part where the useful feature to reduce editing is covered – includes sample images
Down below there are a few YouTube videos covering the DR expansion features on Fujifilm cameras.
In the first video, the guy straight out recommends you to shoot ISO 500 most of the time, which unlocks the DR400 feature.
In short: Fujifilm offers a few options to expand dynamic range:
- DR200/DR400
- DR Priority
- HDR
They all work a bit differently and if you want to know all the details (as well as tips and tricks on how to make the best out of them), I can highly recommend Rico Pfirstinger’s excellent Fujifilm books.
I personally use DR200/DR400 most to get the most JPEG dynamic range in-camera which is perfect for travel or family shots where I don’t want to spend hours editing later.
Of course this requires me to shoot often at ISO 250 (DR200) or ISO 500 (DR400), but noise at those levels is negligible.
Also, I feel that with every sensor generation, Fujifilm has improved on how DR200/DR400 files look like (more natural) and with the 40MP sensor the results are the best so far.
Overall, the combination of Fujifilm film simulations, DR200/400 (and another feature that I might touch on in another article), are a game changer for me as far as reducing editing time on the computer.
Just to be clear: I still—and always will—shoot JPEG+RAW. As much as I trust the in-camera results for most of my needs, there are always a few images I might want to print. And for those, I like having the RAW backup, in case I need the full flexibility of a RAW converter to handle a particularly challenging shot.
Finally, as a reference, here are the minimum ISO requirements for the DR-function on different X-Trans sensors:
DR on 40MP (X-T5 & Co)
DR200 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 250 and above
DR400 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 500 and above
DR on 26MP (X-S20 & Co)
DR200 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 320 and above
DR400 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 640 and above
DR on 24MP (X-E3 and Co)
DR200 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 400 and above
DR400 is available at sensitivities starting from ISO 800 and above