Oh No! He exposed to the Left! Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert...

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert to lay to rest that hum-drum mantra of ETTR as a fixed rule.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

ygelman wrote:

Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert to lay to rest that hum-drum mantra of ETTR as a fixed rule.

I do it every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

Bill_de Loc: US

imagemeister wrote:

I do it every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

And I always thought that your photos looked great. :thumbup:

I guess I was wrong. :oops:

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ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

imagemeister wrote:

I do it every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

Then you're even more severe than I am. I shoot ETTL for two reasons: 1) because the image looks better on the camera's display screen and I can show it to others nearby if they want to see it; 2) it looks better if I don't want to bother too much and therefore print from the jpg file.

But for good work, I use the RAW editor anyway, and in that case exposing to the right or left does not really matter very much -- as long as it is not extreme. I only posted the Sammon comment because I've always been amused by the stern tone of those ETTR'ers.

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

imagemeister wrote:

I do it every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

Bill_de wrote:

And I always thought that your photos looked great. :thumbup:

I guess I was wrong. :oops:

--

LOL!

Garyminor Loc: Raleigh, NC

ygelman wrote:

Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert to lay to rest that hum-drum mantra of ETTR as a fixed rule.

The purpose of ETTR is to get as much shadow detail as possible, without loosing detail in the highlights. If this is the greatest exposure that doesn't cause any (truly, unrecoverable) blown highlights, then this is (by definition) ETTR.

I would surmise that he could have given this more exposure, and still kept the highlights. If he considers something to be overexposed and washed out, even though it does not saturate the sensors, then this can be recovered.

It would be interesting to experiment with this raw file, along with the raw files of other similar shots with greater exposure.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

ygelman wrote:

Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert to lay to rest that hum-drum mantra of ETTR as a fixed rule.

It's not a fixed rule, and has never been one. An experienced photographer can analyze a scene and make decisions of exposure based on that analysis. Sometimes it will be ETTR, sometimes ETTL, and sometimes exactly as indicated by the meter.

Bill_de Loc: US

rook2c4 wrote:

It's not a fixed rule, and has never been one. An experienced photographer can analyze a scene and make decisions of exposure based on that analysis. Sometimes it will be ETTR, sometimes ETTL, and sometimes exactly as indicated by the meter.

That should be repeated over and over. Maybe it will sink in. ;)

--

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

Does anyone ever ETTM anymore? :)

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

imagemeister wrote:

I do it every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

I don't know what you are processing with but since subscribing to photoshop CC I only shoot RAW now where I never did before. The RAW editor in CC is so easy and instantly loads your RAW images... Tonal and exposure control with RAW images is far better than with Jpegs, at least that has been my experience. I have been able to recover some RAW images that I am afraid I would have never been able to recover with Jpeg because of improper exposure.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

i use ETTL for white flowers and JPG

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

Garyminor wrote:

The purpose of ETTR is to get as much shadow detai... (show quote)

Couldn't agree more. ETTR was conceived for negative media. You could always burn in overexposed highlights (they were blocked up but recorded), but you could never recover detail lost to underexposure, which would show up as clear areas on a negative.

Sammon's image above is not one of his better images.

As far as birds are concerned, I expose to the right - to ensure that I have as much light hitting the sensor without blowing the highlights.

1635x1257 crop from 7360x4912 image

(Download)

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

ygelman wrote:

Here is the well known photographer, Rick Sammon, who writes in DPMag that he purposefully under-exposed his shot. I guess it takes at least one expert to lay to rest that hum-drum mantra of ETTR as a fixed rule.

One, I doubt he laid anything to rest, outside of getting a good exposure. Proper exposure will prevent overexposing the highlights. Just being well known doesn't establish anything, other than he is well known.

Oh, and that photograph definitely lacks tonal range.
--Bob

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Gaaaaa! ETTR/ETTL... There are no hard and fast rules... Just techniques. Did you get the image you wanted? That's the only question that matters.

There are principles and laws of physics behind the results, but no rules! Learn how stuff works and exploit the laws of nature any way you like. I think the example is dull and brooding, but he probably WANTED that.

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

imagemeister wrote:

I do it (ETTL) every day - with white birds - and do NOT shoot RAW .....

Gene51 wrote:

. . . ETTR was conceived for negative media. You could always burn in overexposed highlights (they were blocked up but recorded), but you could never recover detail lost to underexposure, which would show up as clear areas on a negative.
. . .
As far as birds are concerned, I expose to the right - to ensure that I have as much light hitting the sensor without blowing the highlights.

Indeed Gene51's ETTR image of the eagle(?) on the ice is a fine shot, and the tones on the block of ice on which it's resting are very good.
But given what imagemeister said, I wonder: Has there been any comparison of the same scene photographed both by ETTR and ETTL and then expertly processed?