Under expose or Over expose (Page 9): As far as I am aware,always expose to the right,and DON'T blow out highlights. Under exposing,creates noise to develop especially in the shadow...

christofras Loc: Gold Coast Australia

As far as I am aware,always expose to the right,and DON'T blow out highlights. Under exposing,creates noise to develop especially in the shadow areas. The best approach is to get the best possible exposure IN CAMERA rather than doing excessive in post editing.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Peter Boyd wrote:

It is always better to correctly expose the subject and with modern digital cameras it should always be possible to correctly expose. .

This begs the question, What is correct exposure?

Although a digital camera may be very precise in its setting for ISO, aperture and shutter speed, it will select an exposure to make the spot (or the average of several spots) record as 18% grey, regardless of color or whether this tonality is appropriate. Only we can decide if this is what we want and we have to adjust the normal exposure up or down based on our own judgment. In other words, a camera cannot really be trusted to select the "normal" exposure without our input.

We also have to consider whether the range of luminance is narrow enough for our digital sensor. If the range is not too wide, ETTR will let us optimize the tonality and lessen the noise when shooting raw so long as we do not go too far right and blow the highlights. If the range is too wide, we will be forced to take several exposures and use HDR to recover the detail we would otherwise miss. Either way, we will be committed to some post processing effort.

I know this sounds complicated. In many ways, film is easier and more forgiving.

christofras Loc: Gold Coast Australia

Point taken Peter. as vague as it might be ,correct exposure is somewhere between the two extremes. One will never get two people to agree on correct exposure. Guess the important issue here is to maximise the digital information without loosing too much!

jdcalabr Loc: Orlando, FL

I saw a video tutorial one time that said "expose to the right". The context of the recommendation was a landscape photograph. The author metered the brightest part of the sky and then manually exposed for one or two stops higher. The reasoning was that the camera could handle two stops above the "normal" reading without blowing out the highlights. By doing this, the foreground exposure was better.

I suppose some experimentation is in order for each particular case.

christofras Loc: Gold Coast Australia

I usually bracket 4-5 shots (if doing landscape) ,and pick the best one. I don't mean HDR,...its not to my liking. Relying on the histogram,wont guarantee a correct exposure in all situations either!.

Ernest Loc: Goulburn, NSW, Australia

I am an artist and often paint hot summer, high noon landscapes "over-exposed" as this evokes heat more than anything else. I am comfortable with over exposed photographs that evoke summer heat as well. Correcting the over exposure often cools the photographic image so that it no longer is evocative of summer heat.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

I am thinking outdoors t may be more helpful to underexpose, the opposite for indoors. It depends in each case on available light and what you are trying to accomplish.

photoninja1 Loc: Tampa Florida

Under or over..all these people have their own valid point. You need to learn to see and interpret the light and expose according to what you are trying to show. Kelby has a good point if you shoot RAW you can dig out the highlights and get a wider dynamic range. If you're shooting JPEGs and you blow out the highlights you're dead; and that's the other side of the arguement. Neither one is always right. Learning to see is key.

Nightski

photoninja1 wrote:

Under or over..all these people have their own valid point. You need to learn to see and interpret the light and expose according to what you are trying to show. Kelby has a good point if you shoot RAW you can dig out the highlights and get a wider dynamic range. If you're shooting JPEGs and you blow out the highlights you're dead; and that's the other side of the arguement. Neither one is always right. Learning to see is key.

I guess what you are saying is that all of us newbies just have to put in our time gathering learning experiences. There is no magic formula, but it is nice to have a place to start when you are brand new to it. If nothing else Bryan Peterson's book helped me understand the modes on my camera and how they work...and yes, I had already read my manual. Peterson states it in a way that's easy to understand. I love the worker ants analogy with the ISO. I never really got iso before. So now I am out there with my camera thinking to myself...Now do I need 400 worker ants, or would 200 do it? Baby steps. :)

GregShea Loc: Redding, Ca

You can brighten a under exposed shot but you can't dim down blow out and get anything from it.

PhilNSLS Loc: North Shore Lake Superior, Minnesota

Nightski wrote:

I probably shouldn't have said anything. I am so new to photography. I was just excited about what I learned last night reading the "Understanding Exposure" book, and I wanted to share.

Nightski--Don't stop with just one. Bryan has several other 'Understanding' books and a couple of field guides. Every one of them is both interesting and educational.

I've read them all and am starting on my rereads!

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

GregShea wrote:

You can brighten a under exposed shot but you can't dim down blow out and get anything from it.

NOBODY is suggesting that - You evidently have not read the whole thread. A PROPER exposure is not blown out.

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

A few years ago I was doing an house warming and the lady wanted a shot of her pet dog on a spairal stair case. I had the flash on bounce. But I was in a 2 1/2 story entrey way. When I checked the image the exposure was ok for the room but the dog was just a black blob. So reshot the photo. When downloading the photo Just for the fun of it. I tried to lighten it up a bit. The dog came out very good. Back then I didn't realize how good PP was. Now you can fix alot more than you could in the darkroom.

Hutch Loc: Seabrook, Texas

In one of the many times this subject has been discussed I offered the following response. If you will take the time to read the information provided by the referenced link I don't think you will have any doubts concerning the correct answer to the inquiry.

"Scott is correct; if you can't take a photo that is properly exposed it is much better to overexpose as long as you don't blow the highlights. An exposure with the histogram shifted to the right, overexposed, contains much more data than one shifted to the left, underexposed. An overexposed image is much easier to fix during post processing than one that's underexposed. I have found an article that explains why this is true and it's by far the best explanation that I have ever seen.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

In my experience, when you try to correct an underexposed photo you usually end up with a lot of noise, particularly in the dark areas of the photo."

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

Hutch wrote:

In one of the many times this subject has been dis... (show quote)

When I was first learning photography back on the late '70s, I was taught to underexpose by about 1/3 as a general rule of thumb. Only years later, when I got into digital and found this forum, did I even consider exposing "to the right". After reading the article mentioned when you originally posted it, it made a lot of sense to me. With the PP software available these days you can retain a lot of detail that you would have been lost had you underexposed by overexposing a bit as long as you're careful not to blow the highlights, then tweaking the exposure if needed in post.