Epidiascope

I captured a pair of images yesterday that demonstrate the Canon 5D Mark II’s “Auto Lighting Optimizer” setting pretty effectively. The setting is supposed to “analyze image brightness and automatically adjust dark areas in images so that they appear brighter.” It seems to work pretty well for some high contrast images.

It does improve this picture significantly, nicely bringing up the detail in the shadowed area on the robe. However, I’m leaving it off in most situations on my own camera, simply because I like having greater control over the exposure. The left image is with the Auto Lighting Optimizer off, the right with it set to “Strong”, the exposures are otherwise identical.

Auto Lighting Optimizer Comparison - Off on left, Strong on right