selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

That would be a great thing to have for Nikon if you are convinced that ETTR/EBTR needs to be used.

Yet after more than two years of asking for visible evidence, nobody has been willing or able able to supply any in the form of an image captured at a reasonable ISO "with" and "without" ETTR/EBTR. Until such evidence is presented the concept remains an exercise in faith, shrouded in long explanations, misleading claims, anecdotal evidence, tables, visual aids and unproven assertions - smoke and mirrors.

On the other hand, I have presented many examples and procedures that clearly show the effect of varying exposure and ISO. They demonstrate the opposite - that in a variety of real-life situations there is no visible benefit.

All we can rely on is common sense. Using a low ISO avoids noise. It's easy to get enough exposure without blowing any highlights we want to keep and shadows are easy to recover.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

You can do better than that.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I agree with the fuzziness of the meaning of ETTR/EBTR. I look at ETTR as to, or towards, the right. certainly not at or AATR - expose at the right. The beyond the right makes sense in that one is exposing beyond what the jpg is indicating as overexposure, but not beyond what the camera's RAW will capture. Thus, allowing me to place a metered value in a particular bright Zone.

Note, the floor in the diner was not quite white. So, I didn't push the exposure to the point that it was pure white. The reflection was not quite specular. I retained just a bit of the wear and tear on the floor by keeping the exposure just under pure white. Had it been pure white, I'd have pushed the exposure a bit to that point of the reflection being pure white.

Testing and determining my camera's capabilities was done with a Macbeth Color Chart and spot metering on the white patch. Then increasing the exposure settings on the camera until I could not retrieve the accurate rendering of the rest of the colors of the entire chart in post processing.

This testing was also done using a Sekonic meter. That same process allowed me to develop a profile of each of my two digital cameras and store them in the meter. Through the use of Sekonic's software, this allowed me to "close the loop" and provide the meter a better understanding, if you will, of the camera's capabilities.
--Bob

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Staying out of this particular discussion - just pointing to a tool for Canon users if you typically use the in-camera histogram to judge exposure. Personally I'm typically a zone system / spot metering type shooter. Lots of years spent with a Minolta handheld spot meter, and I understand the limitations and characteristics of my current camera pretty well with regards to exposure, noise and DR.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Thank you for that clarification. It confirms what I said, that there are different viewpoints on the meaning of ETTR and different ways to practice each person's take on it.

Only Uuglypher appears to follow the strict definition outlined by Reichmann. His logic simply does not hold up to close scrutiny. It is dogmatic and simplistic. It has led him to present some really off-the-wall arguments.

However, the way that you and Gene51 have adapted it from your understanding of the Zone System brings it closer to mine - the placement of a particular target within the scene on a zone of your choice. That makes sense and it would make sense to anyone else transitioning from film to digital.

I have tried ETTR/EBTR and could not discern any benefit over the much simpler approach of low ISO and just adhering to the Zone System. But my mind remains open to any evidence to the contrary.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I can, but there is no need to - you, and others, have debated this ad nauseam in a number of posts recently, so I see no need to add my voice to the debate. Instead, I injected some much needed humor. . .

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

This approach has withstood the test of time. In negative film it is ETTL, but for digital and reversal media, it goes the other way. It worked for me 50 years ago, and still works today. And before me, it has worked for 1000s of photographers who "get it," yourself included.

BTW, there is no adaptation in my use of ETTR - I strictly adhere to the basic concept, and just take care about overexposing, even if it means some modest "underexposure" in certain high contrast situations -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gene_lugo/ - res ipsa loquitur!

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

No need to get defensive about it. Yes, I get it when it comes to film but that't an entirely different kettle of fish.

With digital, there are two separate absolute limits where the sensel buckets overflow or the raw file numeric values max out. These place an upper limit on exposure. It's only with a gain of 1x that these two limits are reached at about the same time.

With film there is the film base plus fog that you need to rise above before you can begin to record anything meaningful. With B&W you can adjust the "gain" (contrast) but you cannot do that with color without consequenses.

Even with B&W film, the latitude soon maxes out so, if you get the shadows right, you still might end up with too much contrast and exposure to retain useful information in the highlights. That's where compensating development comes in to retard the highlight development while completing the shadow development.

But the part that does not translate is the much wider DR of digital and the fact that there is so much more latitude than with film, especially color transparency film.

You can get away with much more variation in exposure setting with digital than you could with film. That's why there is no apparent deterioration in an image of a normal scene when you apply ETTR or ETTL by one or two stops, even more with a scene with a narrow DR.

Just as there have been proponents of ETTR who demonstrate how much they can push the histogram to the right without losing the highlights information, there have been others who have allowed the histogram to move to the left without losing shadow information. What saves them both is having a scene with a narrower DR than the camera is capable of recording cleanly.

And the key to accessing the camera's wide DR is staying close to base ISO. That also encourages full exposure at the camera's native sensitivity and holds the noise down. That's not a hangup on my part, it's an immutable fact.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Defensive? Really? I paid you a compliment and that's what I get for it!

catchlight.. Loc: Wisconsin USA- Halden Norway

Agreed:

"Just as there have been proponents of ETTR who demonstrate how much they can push the histogram to the right without losing the highlights information, there have been others who have allowed the histogram to move to the left without losing shadow information. What saves them both is having a scene with a narrower DR than the camera is capable of recording cleanly.

And the key to accessing the camera's wide DR is staying close to base ISO. That also encourages full exposure at the camera's native sensitivity and holds the noise down. That's not a hangup on my part, it's an immutable fact."

For Me: My best resolution was borderline at one stop in the DR extremes of our snowy Wisconsin terrain...zone warfare makes so much more sense than blowning highlights after pushing it today. Back to bracketing for me...

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Defensive in the sense that you appeared to be defending the use of the tern "ETTR" for the way you set your exposure.

Watching the highlights and trying to avoid blowing them does not need to be referred to as ETTR. Some may use the term because there is no convenient alternative.

This thread is about the two claims that are often made about ETTR, reduced noise and improved shadow tonality. The noise reduction claim is bogus and the other is unproven.

I think you, Bob and I are really on the same page in how we expose under most circumstances. It's only the pseudo-science surrounding ETTR/EBTR that is a problem.

One of the situations I have been describing is te case of a very narrow DR. See: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-436706-1.html#7340010

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Ok.