These images are pushed from a RAW file; what you are actually seeing here are RAW levels 0 through 255 from the deepest shadows of a RAW with over 14000 levels available; this is, in effect, ISO 100 pushed to ISO 2800. The areas that look clipped are actually almost black in the JPEG embedded in this RAW file. Nothing is lost to the 8-bit format.
Guest
07-Jun-2007 02:32
It might be surprising to some that the images look the same, despite the difference in bit depth. But there are some subtle points to consider.
First, the title of each image as ", RGB/8)" as part of the name, indicating the file is only storing 8-bits per pixel per RGB channel.
Second, the common computer monitors only display 8-bits per RGB channel. And usually the computer monitors don't even fully display 8-bits. The last few bits are ignored. This is especially true of LCD monitors.
