I am just blown away by the Fuji sensors ability. Makes my Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Olympus sensors look second rate. I can see why a Fuji shooter would laugh at the concept of exposing to the right. Maybe I need to take a closer look at the Fuji cameras. I like their retro style, but didn’t realize how good the sensors were. Forgive me for posting off tangent here.
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It is a good place to improve your processing skills. It is also a great place to compare the strengths and weaknesses of various programs. I would really encourage you to explore Darktable. I have shifted from Lightroom to Darktable. I am not knocking Lightroom. It is a well designed, intuitive and easy to use program producing great results, however I just find Darktable so much more fun to play with. The developers are doing a really good job aggressively improving it with new modules and improvements. Welcome to the forum.
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This was fun!
I got a decent image by just setting the white point really low, equivalent to upping the exposure. Still, a rather tame filmic curve gave it the touch of contrast. I messed around with denoising, but decided to ditch that in favor of just using the export resize to obliterate it. Finally, a crop to put the bird in good emphasis.
I think the feather textures mitigated any adverse effect of the underexposure. This camera also pulls up well. Rendered at 800x600, this rendition is meant to view full-sized, put away your pixel-peep pants here:
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Perfectly fine. I always enjoy seeing and learning about new beautiful birds. Feel free to share anytime! I like his little white patch above the beak 
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I believe the newer cameras from Nikon, Canon, Olympus etc also have iso invariant sensors, so no need to change systems and have to reacquire new glass! It really is fun to “push” an image to such extremes and get a usable product out of it 
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@hatsnp Thank you for the play_raw 
So this is my version - amazing how much DT could recover. I tried to keep it a bit darker than I normally would, as I think it works well in this case.
@Terry I think the Colour Balance RGB module is amazing for editing tonality and great in replacing S&H - maybe worth a go?
_DSF1659.RAF.xmp (8.9 KB)
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I agree that the perceptual brilliance grading options in Color Balance RGB module are really good and worth learning. However, I would not see it as a replacement for S&H. S&H produces a different look. S&H seems to reveal detail by applying some sort of sharpening, it also affects the color and contrast. For some images S&H is detrimental as it will reveal more noise, but for some images the extra punch it puts into the shadows looks good. I see these two modules as just different and recommend picking the best tool for the job. What I love about DT is the numerous alternative options to tackle problems such as dark shadows. Thanks for your suggestion. I feel I underutilize the color balance RGB options for tweaking shadows and highlights.
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I also love the many options darktable offers.
Thank you for detailing S&H - I was not aware it also applies some sharpening. So this is yet another option to explore 
Often shadows look dull and while tone equalizer and Color balance can brighten the shadows, S&H adds punch to the shadows by lifting the colors, contrast and details. I am not saying this is always desirable, but for many images it is. I often use a combination of S&H and Tone equalizer to harness the best of both modules.
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Its more of an effect on local contrast that could be perceived as a sharpening … the tweaking of the compression and radius can really alter the look from the default…in a good and bad way…
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I think the more likely comparison is setting the mask in rgb CB module and then using the middle tab to lift shadows. You can bring them up slowly and not impact the midtones and then go back to the mask and move the grey fulcrum or make the rolloff steep or shallow… you can really fine tune the shadows this way and then maybe tweak brilliance a bit for the final result… As others have said there are lots of recipes available with all the tools and options…
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This is definitely a way to deal with noise
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So do you live in Australia. I am in Tasmania.
Yeah, really only good for web-destined renditions and such. That’s about 100% of what I do these days… 
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Thanks
Yeah, I tried to avoid the bad effects (i.e. haloing) altogether by not using the module any more (and thus far, I am very happy with CB RGB), but I realize through yours and @terry s comments (and the way someone like @s7habo) works, that there is a lot to gain from trying to achieve the same thing with different methods.
Now I just have to train my eyes and perception a little more to make educated edits 
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The beauty about DT’s version of S&H is that you can switch the softening method from the default Gaussian to bilateral filter and this usually removes any halo effect. The real reasons for me often using the S&H is the ease of a single click and instant improvement in so many images. Compare the difference for yourself and realize it is not a competition between which is the best module or method, but rather a difference in the final look. If your shadows would benefit from from cleaner or more vibrant colors, then S&H may be the better option. If your darks just need a little brightening then another module such as Color Balance or Tone equalizer may be best.
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Hi Terry, yep, I’m in SE NSW, nearest town is Cooma, about 100km south of Canberra. It’s always nice to meet a fellow Aussie
You can see my Flickr page if you’d like to see a bit more of my photography. A lot of motorsport I’m afraid, not everyone finds it that interesting, but there are some other subjects too!
