cactuspic wrote:
All exposure to the right means is that there is additional headroom in some cameras between when the histogram shows blown highlights and when the highlights actually turn detailess white....
This is true.
cactuspic wrote:
For the most part, the idea of ETTR was most important with Canon shooters whose sensors registered more noise and had less dynamic range than the Sony and Nikon sensors.
This is not true. In fact, at the time when ETTR was first proposed as a technique, Sony wasn't even in the business of DSLRs yet, while Nikon and everyone else other than Canon were using CCD sensors (mostly from Kodak) that were horribly noisy at high ISOs. In 2005 and 2006 I was shooting a lot of events with a friend. She used a pair of Nikon D200 and I used a pair of Canon 30D. I admired the build quality of her cameras, but she envied that I could make usable images one or two stops higher ISO than her. She never shot higher than ISO 800 and preferred to keep to 400... while I used 800 freely, 1600 when needed and even occasionally 3200 (tho only with lots of extra post-processing work). She traded her D200's for a pair of D300's immediately when they came available.
One of the earliest discussions of ETTR appeared on The Luminous Landscape website in 2003 (
https://luminous-landscape.com/expose-right/). It wasn't until 2006 that Sony entered the DSLR business by purchasing Konica-Minolta. Nikon sort of experimented CMOS n their 2004 D2X model... but didn't make any other models with it or fully switch over to CMOS until 2007/2008 with their D3, D300, D700, D90 models.
It is true, though, that a lot of ETTR users were mostly Canon shooters, who were pushing the limits of the far less noisy CMOS sensors they were blessed with in all models beginning with the D30 (2000) and 1D (2001). I don't know if folks with CCD cameras used ETTR or not, if it was as beneficial to them as it was to those of us who were using Canon with CMOS.
Another factor, I've always felt Canon tended to calibrate their cameras slightly toward under-exposure... possibly a carryover from the days of slide film, a lot of which was particularly sensitive to accidental over-exposure and blown highlights. I think they have just treated digital the same because there's still some, though not as much concern about blown highlights. I haven't used more modern Nikon, Pentax, Oly, etc. enough to have a feel for any slight bias they might or might not give their metering systems (my newest Nikon, Pentax and Olympus all date to the 1980s and earlier).
cactuspic wrote:
With the dynamic range and noise capability of the better current cameras, there may be less need to expose to the right than with earlier sensors.
This is true. The latest generations of cameras are able to produce image that are a lot more "forgiving" of post-processing corrections. Sony sensors, including those being used in Nikon cameras, set a new standard for dynamic range... with about one stop wider DR at native ISOs... approx. 14 stops versus 13 stops in Canon... at ISO 100. But the difference in DR drops and then disappears at higher ISOs. They are about the same at ISO 800 or 1600, and beyond that Canon have slightly wider DR.
Or, another way of looking at the same thing... There is potential for even better images, using ETTR.
Besides.... what does "wider dynamic range" actually mean, in real world applications? It just means that that images offer more latitude to fix your screw-ups in post-processing. ETTR is a simplistic way to try to offset any need to make those corrections at all.