Settings for an Accurate Histogram

Ric Grupe · September 23, 2009

A Possible Problem with Expose to the Right!

Something I had never heard of. Seems reasonable.

Richard · September 23, 2009

Ric Grupe wrote:

A Possible Problem with Expose to the Right!

Something I had never heard of. Seems reasonable.

I'm going to have to try this.

arodney · September 23, 2009

Richard wrote:

I'm going to have to try this.

Its a bandaid on a gunshot wound. No setting is going to produce the actual linear encoded Histogram, this might get a very tad closer to reality but its still science fiction. The camera Histogram is that of a gamma corrected JPEG. The Raw data is linear encoded and has really no resemblance to the JPEG.

http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html

jfriend · September 25, 2009

arodney wrote:

Its a bandaid on a gunshot wound. No setting is going to produce the actual linear encoded Histogram, this might get a very tad closer to reality but its still science fiction. The camera Histogram is that of a gamma corrected JPEG. The Raw data is linear encoded and has really no resemblance to the JPEG.

http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html

Such a typical post from you Andrew. All you do is shoot things down without saying anything useful. There are useful things in the article from the OP.

If one is shooting RAW, it DOES help to do things that get the in camera histogram to be closer to reality than it might otherwise be. Nobody said it was accurate - we all agree it's inaccurate because it's made from a JPEG, not from the RAW data.

So, unless you never even look at the histogram, it can be useful to reduce the inaccuracies in the histogram by following some of these guidelines. I shoot with UniWB and with all JPEG settings set to their lowest effect on the image in order to make the histogram better than it would otherwise be. Someday camera manufacturers will get that we'd like an option for a RAW histogram.

Until they do, I make the histogram (and blinkies) we have as good as possible and use them to help me gauge exposure and highlights, particularly when I'm shooting in bright sunlight and the DR exceeds that of the camera so I have to decide what in the scene I'm exposing for and what I'm willing to compromise. I combine that with my own knowledge and experience with my own camera (every camera model will be different) from zillions of images I've processed on what highlights I need to protect, what histogram is too far and what is probably OK and what blinkies are probably too much and which ones are probably OK.

The article you reference (besides sharing the advertising on your website) does not give the average user any tools to use to help in setting exposure for RAW files. You go into great detail in how you analyzed some bracketed shots from a particular camera in a particular scene and then determined which image blew the highlights beyond repair and then you describe how different light meters give different results. I didn't see anything in that article that offered any practical advice on how to set RAW exposure for ETTR on a typical camera.

Settings for an Accurate Histogram

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