Exposure Compensation

Bend The Light

Hi,

I have been doing a few birdy shots recently. I know that to expose the bird against a bright sky, that exposure compensation is necessary, so I cranked it up...and it works.
Question: If I then forget to reset the exposure comp back to zero, then all my images will be overexposed. If I then adjust the exposure in Adobe RAW, effectively back to zero, how is that going to affect my image quality?

I have tried it a couple of times, and it actually looks ok...providing I don't completely blow out the whites with the +ve compensation.

Thoughts?

pathfinder

Michael Reichman and others have suggested "Expose to the Right" for some time. Their thesis is that our camera's meters actually under expose our Raw images, and since most of the image data in our RAW files, is in the far right of the histogram ( the brighter tones of the image ) that exposing as far to the right as you can ( without actually completely blowing out the pixels ) and then reducing the Exposure slider in Raw processing will provide higher a quality image ( or at least lower noise in the image ).

My approach is to try to keep the histogram to the right ( without being overly compulsive or zealous about it since I am shooting RAW to begin with ), but I usually shoot in Manual Mode, so talking about Exposure Compensation is a misnomer, really, as there is not + or - EC when shooting Manual Mode.

The trick to shooting birds is paying very close attention to how their head is held in relation to the sunlight. Just a very small head turn of 15-20 degrees will turn a birds head from sunlit to shade in the blink of an eye. And the exposure changes as well then.

If you choose to shoot in Av mode, using + or - EC can be helpful but I, myself at least, would not leave EC on all the time as it will bite you sooner or later. JHO.

I shoot Av fairly often, but out of doors, where the light is fairly consistent from moment to moment, I find more consistency, and frame to frame accuracy, with Manual Mode. Now if I am shooting a high speed athletic event, then Av or Tv might be preferable.

Spend a few days using Manual Mode out of doors, with occasional glances at your histogram for confirmation ( not at your images itself really ) and see if you don't agree with me.

zoomer

Try using auto ISO.
Also shoot when the light is right, evenings mornings, make the light your friend not your problem. Especially for birds you need good light full on the subject to get good detailed photos with correct color and contrast.

Chimp more at your on camera screen, set your blinkies to go off and leave that screen up. If they go off where you don't want them adjust exposure compensation.
If just the sky is blowing out when you shooting subjects turned away from the sun with bright skies behind, you may need to just let it go....it is not necessary to bring it all the way back in post....blown out skies can be acceptable.

colourbox

Bend The Light wrote: »

If I then adjust the exposure in Adobe RAW, effectively back to zero, how is that going to affect my image quality? I have tried it a couple of times, and it actually looks ok...providing I don't completely blow out the whites with the +ve compensation. Thoughts?

What you're doing can potentially improve image quality due to the expose-to-the-right methodology. If you have to make a mistake, doing it in the direction you're doing it is better than having it be too dark. Shooting brighter and turning it down in post should reduce noise, while if you did it the other direction (exposure compensated down and brought it back up in post) you would probably see an explosion of noise. It's just like you say: There is no problem unless you clip the highlights. Blown out skies are fine if overcast, but if the sky is blue, clipping looks ugly.

(I'm not a wildlife photographer)

Bend The Light

pathfinder wrote: »

Michael Reichman and others have suggested "Expose to the Right" for some time. Their thesis is that our camera's meters actually under expose our Raw images, and since most of the image data in our RAW files, is in the far right of the histogram ( the brighter tones of the image ) that exposing as far to the right as you can ( without actually completely blowing out the pixels ) and then reducing the Exposure slider in Raw processing will provide higher a quality image ( or at least lower noise in the image ).

My approach is to try to keep the histogram to the right ( without being overly compulsive or zealous about it since I am shooting RAW to begin with ), but I usually shoot in Manual Mode, so talking about Exposure Compensation is a misnomer, really, as there is not + or - EC when shooting Manual Mode.

The trick to shooting birds is paying very close attention to how their head is held in relation to the sunlight. Just a very small head turn of 15-20 degrees will turn a birds head from sunlit to shade in the blink of an eye. And the exposure changes as well then.

If you choose to shoot in Av mode, using + or - EC can be helpful but I, myself at least, would not leave EC on all the time as it will bite you sooner or later. JHO.

I shoot Av fairly often, but out of doors, where the light is fairly consistent from moment to moment, I find more consistency, and frame to frame accuracy, with Manual Mode. Now if I am shooting a high speed atheltic event, then Av or Tv might be preferable.

Spend a few days using Manual Mode out of doors, with occaisional glances at your histogram for confirmation ( not at your images itself really ) and see if you don't agree with me.

An excellent response...all makes sense. I will have a go at the manual stuff...I use Av most of the time. Bird photos are recent for me...shooting static amages was easier!

Thanks.

Bend The Light

zoomer wrote: »

Try using auto ISO.
Also shoot when the light is right, evenings mornings, make the light your friend not your problem. Especially for birds you need good light full on the subject to get good detailed photos with correct color and contrast.

Chimp more at your on camera screen, set your blinkies to go off and leave that screen up. If they go off where you don't want them adjust exposure compensation.
If just the sky is blowing out when you shooting subjects turned away from the sun with bright skies behind, you may need to just let it go....it is not necessary to bring it all the way back in post....blown out skies can be acceptable.

Thanks. I don't have Auto ISO, however, so that's out the window. I am ok with blown skies, and I have managed a reasonable image of a kestrel (in another post) where the bird is exposed fairly well, but the sky is white. I think it looks ok, and was done with +2 EC. I'll keep trying.

Bend The Light

colourbox wrote: »

What you're doing can potentially improve image quality due to the expose-to-the-right methodology. If you have to make a mistake, doing it in the direction you're doing it is better than having it be too dark. Shooting brighter and turning it down in post should reduce noise, while if you did it the other direction (exposure compensated down and brought it back up in post) you would probably see an explosion of noise. It's just like you say: There is no problem unless you clip the highlights. Blown out skies are fine if overcast, but if the sky is blue, clipping looks ugly.

(I'm not a wildlife photographer)

I don't consider myself a wildlife photographer either.
I think it's a method I will try a few times...I do need help with noise, and probles i had in the past have been because of trying to bring back underexposure...so this all makes sense.

Cheers

theprincereturns

I remaped my dials (Pentax K20D) so the front one does exposure compensation while in Av mode (so i can quickly dial up or down without taking my eyes off the viewfinder). I did a quick search for your camera (Canon Rebel XTi) and looks like you can do this by holding your exposuer compensation button and moving the main dial. Unfortuantly it doesn't look like your viewfinder shows you the exposure compensation so you would have to take your eyes off the target to be sure of your setting. My suggestion would be to practice changing these settings and get in the habit of adjusting whenever you change shooting situations.

I will voice the opposite here: It is true that overexposing and correcting exposure gives you less noise then underexposing and correcting up. However if you clip the highlights you can't recover anything from them (you can almost always recover some detail from the shadows). Like Colourbox mentioned - cliping while shooting against a cloudy sky isn't a big deal. If it is not overcast and you clip clouds it is not going to look as good at all, and especially if you start cliping forground. RAW does tend to underexpose slightly on my camera so i usually have a +1/2 exposure dialed in all the time. That said I would be carefull about overexposing too much. Manual mode is probably going to be your best bet here in anycase - lock in exposure on a similar toned object that isn't against the sky background and then use this setting regardless of whether the bird is in the sky or ground.

puzzledpaul

Added to the above, isn't the overexposure/post adjustment route also going to reduce other exposure options that could've potentially been more useful ... eg lower iso / higher ss / more dof?

pp