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ETTR
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Jan 2, 2017 17:20:17   #
leftyD500 Loc: Ocala, Florida
 
I have an issue with ETTR, exposure to the right. On paper, it makes sense to me, slightly overexpose so you don't get a lot of noise in shadow or dark areas of the photograph. However, I have found, at least with me, it usually overexposes particular colors, especially reds. Even when my histogram shows that I haven't gone off the scale to the right, my reds are overexposed, and I lose some detail. What am I doing wrong? I am interested in hearing what other fellow hoggers feel about ETTR.

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Jan 2, 2017 17:25:18   #
LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field
 
Like Monty Python, this might be "buying an argument". Although there are proponents of ETTR, there are also those who maintain that the increased Dynamic range of current DSLRs, render ETTR unnecessary.

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Jan 2, 2017 17:38:43   #
MtnMan Loc: ID
 
Do a search on UHH. There was a recent thread on this with lots of info.

ETTR should not overexpose.

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Jan 2, 2017 18:05:16   #
rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA
 
MtnMan wrote:
Do a search on UHH. There was a recent thread on this with lots of info.

ETTR should not overexpose.
Yeah, but that "discussion" got split into several different threads {the two "principals" might be "Ignoring" each other}, each consisting of lots of long posts. I have education in both math and physics, so I should be able to handle them, but I got tired of wading through it. A few pointed questions might be of real benefit.

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Jan 2, 2017 18:09:25   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
jradose wrote:
I have an issue with ETTR, exposure to the right. On paper, it makes sense to me, slightly overexpose so you don't get a lot of noise in shadow or dark areas of the photograph. However, I have found, at least with me, it usually overexposes particular colors, especially reds. Even when my histogram shows that I haven't gone off the scale to the right, my reds are overexposed, and I lose some detail. What am I doing wrong? I am interested in hearing what other fellow hoggers feel about ETTR.


You will get your best bang for the buck if you shoot ETTR and raw. Forget about raw+jpeg, because of the reason you stated above.

But I do need to clarify one point - you are not overexposing. You are properly exposing to capture as much tonal range as you can - without blowing the highlights. Sometimes this will involve "overexposure" but often, and especially with high contrast subjects, it may involve "underexposure" - because the key to getting the optimum exposure is not an image that "looks" good, but one that is exposed as high as possible while still retaining highlight detail, and in high contrast situations the image may appear darker than you'd normally like. Shooting raw allows you to minimize/control individual channel clipping, and reveal both highlights and shadow detail that would be lost in a jpg.

Oh, and to do it properly, without guesswork, use the spot meter function in your camera. You'll have to do a little trial and error to see how much you can add to a highlight reading before you blow it out. I suggest that if there is snow, or a sunlit white building like a church, read the highlight, and do a series of bracketed exposures starting at +1 stop, in 1/3 stop increments. Your camera may go as high as 2 or more stops before you get to the point that you can't recover detail in the raw file in post processing. That will be your upper limit. This works 100% of the time, without guesswork.

It makes sense to google "zone system for photography" and become very familiar with the concept - it will change the way you think about getting the right exposure.

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Jan 2, 2017 18:16:02   #
rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA
 
Gene51 wrote:
You will get your best bang for the buck if you shoot ETTR and raw. Forget about raw+jpeg, because of the reason you stated above.

But I do need to clarify one point - you are not overexposing. You are properly exposing to capture as much tonal range as you can - without blowing the highlights. Sometimes this will involve "overexposure" but often, and especially with high contrast subjects, it may involve "underexposure" - because the key to getting the optimum exposure is not an image that "looks" good, but one that is exposed as high as possible while still retaining highlight detail, and in high contrast situations the image may appear darker than you'd normally like. Shooting raw allows you to minimize/control individual channel clipping, and reveal both highlights and shadow detail that would be lost in a jpg.

Oh, and to do it properly, without guesswork, use the spot meter function in your camera. You'll have to do a little trial and error to see how much you can add to a highlight reading before you blow it out. I suggest that if there is snow, or a sunlit white building like a church, read the highlight, and do a series of bracketed exposures starting at +1 stop, in 1/3 stop increments. Your camera may go as high as 2 or more stops before you get to the point that you can't recover detail in the raw file in post processing. That will be your upper limit. This works 100% of the time, without guesswork.

It makes sense to google "zone system for photography" and become very familiar with the concept - it will change the way you think about getting the right exposure.
You will get your best bang for the buck if you sh... (show quote)

If you are still going to end up creating a JPEG file as the final result, does this mean that part of PP is selectively compressing the range from the raw file?

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Jan 2, 2017 20:51:17   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
rehess wrote:
If you are still going to end up creating a JPEG file as the final result, does this mean that part of PP is selectively compressing the range from the raw file?


The jpg made in camera seems to clip rather than compress the detail at the low and high end of the tonal scale, and will clip individual color channels. When you start off with the camera's original raw data, you get to see and control how much data is lost to compression/clipping. Also, by default, the best gamut for jpeg is sRGB, but the best gamut for editing raw files is ProPhoto, and when you export them you keep the color space and export the edited raw file as a 16 bit file. After you've done all of your finishing work, you can export the 16 bit ProPhoto image to 8 bit sRGB jpg. The results are generally better.

On a somewhat related topic, this is an interesting comparison:

http://petapixel.com/2016/02/04/heres-a-crazy-comparison-between-raw-and-jpeg/

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Jan 2, 2017 21:18:18   #
tramsey Loc: Texas
 
I found a good article on this subject at Photography Life. Here's a link

https://photographylife.com/exposing-to-the-right-explained

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Jan 2, 2017 21:31:20   #
jcboy3
 
jradose wrote:
I have an issue with ETTR, exposure to the right. On paper, it makes sense to me, slightly overexpose so you don't get a lot of noise in shadow or dark areas of the photograph. However, I have found, at least with me, it usually overexposes particular colors, especially reds. Even when my histogram shows that I haven't gone off the scale to the right, my reds are overexposed, and I lose some detail. What am I doing wrong? I am interested in hearing what other fellow hoggers feel about ETTR.


The reason is that a lot of cameras simply ignore the red channel when calculating exposure. The result is that reds tend to shift to yellow, and you lose detail. The solution is to be aware of the reds in your frame, and if they are important then you need to adjust exposure accordingly. Which usually means underexposing versus ETTR overexposing.

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Jan 2, 2017 21:46:24   #
Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA
 
FAQ: Exposing To The Right and Exposing Beyond The Right at http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-383871-1.html

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Jan 3, 2017 06:43:24   #
steveg48
 
jradose wrote:
I have an issue with ETTR, exposure to the right. On paper, it makes sense to me, slightly overexpose so you don't get a lot of noise in shadow or dark areas of the photograph. However, I have found, at least with me, it usually overexposes particular colors, especially reds. Even when my histogram shows that I haven't gone off the scale to the right, my reds are overexposed, and I lose some detail. What am I doing wrong? I am interested in hearing what other fellow hoggers feel about ETTR.


How do you know you are exposing to the right? My cameras Nikon D810 and Sony A7Rii have a live histogram, This means I can see it before I take the shot.
The D810 live histogram appears only in live view but the Sony appears in the viewfinder and on the LCD.
Be aware that this histogram is based on a jpg and is not quite accurate. When you review the pictures (chimp) you can set your camera up to see a RGB histogram.
Here you can see if the reds are blowing out and make an adjustment for the next picture.

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Jan 3, 2017 07:06:27   #
kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy
 
It's never a bad idea to expose as far to the right as possible IF you are willing to do some post-processing afterwards to adjust the tonal values. They will tend to look overexposed if you let your raw processor algorithms handle it by default.

I suggest that anyone thinking of this do some experiments comparing the same shot done normally and ETTR at some different ISOs to see exactly how much is gained by the latter--because by exposing to the right you are reducing your headroom.

Metering isn't perfect, and if you have bright highlights in a predominantly dark scene it's dollars to dimes that your meter will err on the high side, blowing out those highlights. Exposing normally or even slightly underexposing will give you some insurance against that eventuality, of course at the cost of raising shadow noise to some degree.

If you are shooting a still life under controlled conditions you can meter carefully and push it right to the edge with confidence that you will end up with an optimal image; shooting moving subjects in the field is entirely another matter.

To my eye slight noise in the shadows is nowhere near as objectionable as blown highlights. Therefore unless I am confident that I have the time to really measure the light correctly I never expose to the right, and in fact in fast situations I usually underexpose (by the meter) by 0.3, 0.7 or 1 EV depending on the situation.

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Jan 3, 2017 07:09:37   #
jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY
 
tramsey wrote:
I found a good article on this subject at Photography Life. Here's a link

https://photographylife.com/exposing-to-the-right-explained


Thanks for that.

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Jan 3, 2017 08:40:23   #
mborn Loc: Massachusetts
 
Gene51 wrote:
The jpg made in camera seems to clip rather than compress the detail at the low and high end of the tonal scale, and will clip individual color channels. When you start off with the camera's original raw data, you get to see and control how much data is lost to compression/clipping. Also, by default, the best gamut for jpeg is sRGB, but the best gamut for editing raw files is ProPhoto, and when you export them you keep the color space and export the edited raw file as a 16 bit file. After you've done all of your finishing work, you can export the 16 bit ProPhoto image to 8 bit sRGB jpg. The results are generally better.

On a somewhat related topic, this is an interesting comparison:

http://petapixel.com/2016/02/04/heres-a-crazy-comparison-between-raw-and-jpeg/
The jpg made in camera seems to clip rather than c... (show quote)



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Jan 3, 2017 09:15:03   #
Psergel Loc: New Mexico
 
For several years I shot ETTR (canon) and had to deal with the same issue you are talking about. Reds were often blown out. It worked in situations where reds weren't involved.
I have given up on ETTR and get better results if I just watch for the blinkies. Simplistic and "amateurish" though it may be.
The same thing is true for the "always shoot manual" notion that I picked up from Bryan Petersen's book, Understanding Exposure." I gave it up except for those situations where it makes the most sense.

My impression is that with newer sensors and newer metering systems ETTR is simply fighting the technology. Current sensors and metering systems are VERY good.

For many, however, ETTR is a sort of sacred cow and for good reasons. It certainly seems to make sense but for me it failed as often as it succeded.

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