Something i never understood ( one of many )
im taking a picture of a flower ( not particluarly bright colors ) , in a shady area on a cloudyish day. I need as little DOF as possible. I shoot with 70-200 f/2.8 . for my example lets say i shoot manual at f/2.8, and the shutter speed is 1/400 and im using ISO 400. And this proves to be the same aperture and Shutter Speed if I was using Av mode.
The shot that i get yields a histogram that isnt bunched up on the left vertical, but certainly isnt what you might call evenly distributed. There is room on the right!
i know i can affect the histogram with some camera adjustments but - is my original exposure a correct exposure?
i made that example up BTW,
or maybe what Im asking is, arent there correctly exposed images that dont have histograms that look like the "typical" properly exposed histograms in charts
troy
The shot that i get yields a histogram that isnt bunched up on the left vertical, but certainly isnt what you might call evenly distributed. There is room on the right!
i know i can affect the histogram with some camera adjustments but - is my original exposure a correct exposure?
i made that example up BTW,
or maybe what Im asking is, arent there correctly exposed images that dont have histograms that look like the "typical" properly exposed histograms in charts
troy
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which perfectly spans all the values from 0 to 255 doesn't really happen in the
real world too often. Consider a night photograph of the moon. The "correct"
histogram for such a photograph will be a spike somewhere close to the right
edge and the rest will be flat. But if you get a similar histogram on a landscape
shot in broad daylight, then you know you're doing something wrong. Knowing
how to read a histogram to determine whether you exposed your image
correctly or not is one of those things you have to learn and which come with
experience.
The moon example is exactly such a case. In other words, to answer your
question, yes, there are correctly exposed images that don't have "typical"
histograms, whatever "typical" means, and whatever "correctly exposed"
means.
http://bertold.zenfolio.com
ok well lets take this further.....
I asked the question, fully understanding how to read a histogram ( ive spent too many night reading Shay's thread's about that stuff). The part im concerning myself with ( and probably too much ) is all this "expose to the right" ( which is what I do! ) stuff. If you read Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" , nowhere in the book does he even mention the histogram. As a matter of fact - word has it that he really doesn't care for it. Now when i was in Hawaii, I decided to change the way I shoot from predominatley Av to Full manual and I shot my images using Bryan's methods. Anyway to make along story short I was thinking today that I really havent paid too much attention to using the histogram. So Im just trying to piece together in my head lots of things so that I can improve my photography.
troy
I just finished watching Michael Riechman and Jeff Schewe discuss exposure in the recent video "From Camera to Print".
When you expose "to the right", you are attempting to capture the image data bits in the parts of the image space with the largest bit depth - darker images exposed to the right will look way too bright initially in the RAW converter. ( IF you are not shooting in RAW, you may not want to expose to the right ) It is kind of like lowering your ISO one stop - think of shooting ISO 100 film at ISO 50 - you get better shadow detail, and lower noise.
In the RAW converter when shooting "to the right", you then move the exposure sider to the left a bit and lower the noise in the image. But you must be careful to avoid blowing the highlights when shooting to the right intially.
If you are shooting in Manual Mode - out of doors in shade or sunliht, I am always amazed at how accurate the sunny 16 nomogram is. When I use an incident meter out of doors, it almost always agrees with the sunny 16 nomogram.
When shooting digital, over exposure ( short of blowing highlights) is better than under exposure and raising the exposure later in the RAW converter. Less noise from over exposure than from under exposure after RAW conversion.
You can only discuss correct exposure within the context of a defined subject and goal of the photographer. Unless you know what the subject is, you can't discuss exposure because the subject helps determine exposure. The photographers intent influences whether the image is high key, low key, cat in a coal mine, - all MIGHT be correct for someone - the shooter determine's what is correct for their intent.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
You are familiar, at least to some degree, with expose to the right. Expose to the right is peculiar to digial photography; it is not often used with film which may be why "Understanding Exposure" doesn't mention it. The basic theory of expose to the right is to push the brightest thing in the scene up as close to 255 as you can get it without blowing it out. Of course that gets tricky in color because you have three channels to keep track of, but you get the idea.
Expose for the light is a bit different. Exposing for the light essentially means picking an exposure that would put a white object at the right of the histogram whether or not there actually is one in the scene. There is a lot of subtlety to this, but that is the basic idea.
Sunny 16 is an "expose for the light" strategy. If you take a picture of a grassy field in direct sun and a white car in direct sun you will use the same exposure for both. If you expose to the right for each of these scenes, you will end up using f/16 for the car but have to to use f/11 or maybe even f/8 to push the grass to the right of the histogram.
So, which is right? You really need to pick your strategy based on the light, your subject and what you are trying to achieve. Expose to the right is usually better for complicated mixed lighting and is often the choice of landscape photographers. Expose for the light is usually better for more consitant, well behaved light and is often the choice of people photographers. At times I use both strategies along with some hybrids and a few tricks that don't fit well in either bin.
Sorry for taking this off topic Troy, but I've gotta ask Pathfinder a question...
PF, I've been debating buying that video series myself. But, as someone who prints only through labs with an sRGB workflow, I'm wondering whether or not it's worth it. Do you think there's enough material covering exposure and post processing to make it worth the while of someone not producing their own ink jet prints?
Thanks
www.ackersphotography.com
I have only watched the first videos, so I do not have the final answer yet. I have not felt, so far, that I really have learned new, hard, specific information. Mostly, for me, it has been covering plowed ground - Expose correctly, use a wide color space ( aRGB or Pro Photo ), calibrate your monitor, profile your printer, use good paper and inks, etc. I think it will get more specific as I get further into the videos though. I am signed up for two of his workshops this fall, so I want to be informed as much as possible before I go. Hence, studying these videos. Besides, $35 is a bargain to what we spend with Canon, isn't it??:D
For those who do their printing via Smugmug, I doubt that they will want to sit through 7 hours of talking heads video, but I could be wrong about that.:D I find it fun to watch the bantering between Michael Reichman and Jeffe Schewe.
I will be in the market in the next year for a new, better large format printer, and I want to know all I can aobut the various choices that are available.
I have now watched through the video about profiling cameras and printers. This is good stuff - clearly shows how to go about profiling your camera ( if desired - and why you might not want to ) and how to create profiles for your printer. Very informative and up to date.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
"Expose to the right" philosophy would say that an evenly toned subject matter, like a flower, should definitely NOT have room on the right end ( 1/4 or so ) of the histogram. "Expose to the right" would suggest that the flower was under exposed - at least as defined by the "expose to the right" philosophy.
Understand that "Expose to the right" ASSUMES you will adjust the exposure and brightness sliders in the RAW conversion to bring the tonalities into line with your visual experience at the time of shooting, thus creating a final jpg that looks correctly toned. You would then expect an image with better shadow and highlight detail, as a result of an optimized RAW file conversion.
Think of it as shooting on optimal negative with the very best shadow and highlight detail ( an over exposed negative a bit ) and then corrected for best tonalities in the print ( RAW conversion)
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin