It's all about gamma corrections! Thoughts on completing an OCA exercise

This exercise looked at the way a digital camera records and modifies an image, in particular the sensor linear capture. The exercise was hugely useful to me as it really made me look at gamma corrections and why they are needed. 

Picture 1: Linear image

The curve of the image was adjusted to simulate a linear image. The Picture demonstrates how this image would have appeared before the camera processor’s corrections. The curve is positioned to the right and the majority of the tone values are assigned to highlights. The levels available to represent shadows are limited.  

Picture 2: Original image with corrections applied by camera’s processor

This is the original image as recorded by my camera, i.e. showing the camera processor’s adjustments. It appears lighter than the image above. A wider range of highlights, mid tones and shadows is represented in the image.    

Picture 3: Gamma correction

The final image shows my attempt to apply a gamma correction to the curve of the linear image. I tried to make the image look as close as possible to the original and the final result appears to be slightly lighter and possibly less contrasty than the original picture. The whites of the building walls seem brighter and the warm tint of the setting sun reflected on the buildings and windows is less present in the image. The curve shows the values shifting to the top left corner and the darker tones seem to be particularly affected by the adjustments. Due to the increased contrast there seem to be less detail visible in the shadow area.