blackest Loc: Ireland

Ok I went out this afternoon and decided to see if i could get this right and i was all over the place. I was applying exposure compensation from -2 to +2 metering the highlights and using exposure lock to hold the exposure. All i got was confused. I think the idea is i can get detail from the highlights that are one stop over exposed from raw.

Can anyone simplify this, the other weird thing was applying exposure compensation seemed to be getting added to the exposure and not getting corrected so i got maximum detail. For a cloudy day i was getting 1/90th pointing at the grass and 1/1500th pointing at the sky. ..

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

You've got the right idea. However, the first thing you'd need to do is test your camera as to how far above the meter reading you can push the exposure. This varies from camera to camera, even same model to same model.

Secondly, spot metering is a must, as well as shooting in RAW.

Knowing that the metered area is going to indicate an exposure that will place that value in the middle of the exposure range, Zone V technically. One would need to increase exposure to push that value to a higher value. I'd recommend not using exposure compensation, but actually change the shutter speed, f/stop, or both to achieve the necessary increase in exposure. Keep in mind that each f/stop or shutter speed equates to a one Zone change in exposure.
--Bob

blackest Loc: Ireland

I think you could be right there exposure compensation seemed to be getting taken into account. I need to sit down with the shots i took and figure what worked and what failed ...

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Blackest, I failed to mention using Manual mode for this. When exposing for photos I'm taking, I'll meter the highlights, in Manual mode one the exposure settings are set, they don't change. What I may do is focus, 1/2 press on the shutter release, on what I want in focus, but then without releasing or pressing the shutter release, recompose the photo and then press the shutter release the rest of the way. The important thing is Manual mode for all of this.
--Bob

blackest Loc: Ireland

I just found a really interesting video

https://topdownvideos.com/training/tone-mapping/

what do you think?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

That is a very interesting video. He does make one mistake at 2:45 or so into it. He says the image is clearly overexposed. If it were overexposed, none of that detail would have been brought out by moving the exposure slider to the left. However, the video does cover a good bit of ground on ETTR/EBTR.

I readily push my exposures to the right, to the point where a view of the back of the camera has an inordinate amount of blinkies. Two time-worn images which I also used as part of a topic on ETTR/EBTR posted here, does very much the same thing.
http://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/2015/10/11/1444601010698-d700_2015091301_012_sooc.jpg
http://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/2015/10/11/1444601010978-d700_2015091301_012.jpg

I use very similar techniques as the video illustrated. Not trying to confuse the issue, the green color is quite normal for the preset I use which allows even more capture of data from the sensor. However, the idea of pushing exposure to the right also masks noise in the darker parts of the final image.
--Bob

donrosshill Loc: Delaware & Florida

The Video explains it all. Cameras can not record what the eye can adjust to. As pointed out in the video, you can pick that exposure range that best suits what you want to see.
Don

blackest Loc: Ireland

Using what the video showed I took a pretty bad photo and created 3 tiff files at different exposures I then exported them to nik HDR and did a fairly basic merge the saturation is a bit (ok a lot) OTT but the tones recovered are quite impressive.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-514911-1.html

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

John, this is what I do.

With the camera set to record raw, manual exposure, spot meter mode, base ISO - I look for the brightest area that I still need detail in.
I have previously determined that if I add one full stop of exposure, that will result in a histogram that looks slightly overexposed, and if the highlight warning is on, there will be some slight blinking. This is fine, since the histogram and warning are based on the jpeg preview.
And that is it.

In low contrast scenes the image will appear overexposed - brighter than it should be.
In high contrast scenes, depending on how much shadow and darker than middle gray there is, the image will likely look underexposed, but the highlights may still be slightly blinking.

I don't use auto exposure modes or exposure compensation or auto ISO.

I had a Fuji once, and I could actually go 2-2/3 stops over the highlight reading and still have good detail.

When I shoot at high ISO (D800, D810), sometimes 1 stop will be too much, so I use 2/3 stop.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Ok lets say the sky is the brightest area and spot metering this area suggests 1/1000th f5.6 at iso 80. Camera has come up with this value since it thinks it is looking at zone 5 so as it is at that exposure there will be 3 useable stops brighter than this available which you are not going to use. the first 2 are the ones the jpeg allows for and 1 more is in the raw but unused...

so how would you correct the exposure to use the 3 stops ...

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

You don't. The reality of digital is that it is far less resistant to overexposure. Black and white negative film was the inverse - if you didn't get some silver in the shadows that was denser than the base+fog - you got nuthin'

The sky may be the brightest area, but does it have important detail? Usually not. The image I posted as an example taken on the east end of Kilmainham Gaol was one of those where there were some cloud details that I wanted but the camera preview and histogram showed them as overexposed. I took a chance with the new camera and did what I normally do - 1 stop - and it was ok.

blackest Loc: Ireland

so your exposure was from a regular midtone but you dropped it a stop in order to keep the sky from blowing out?