Scoutman Loc: Orlando, FL

The key phrase "any other thoughts on this?" was met with some really helpful responses. And, as is frequently the case here, many expanded on the topic, as it provoked additional questions related to exposure.

My search on "shooting to the right," now part of my photo lexicon, turned up zero results using the Forum search tool. Now that will no longer be the case. Thanks, Nolte, and to everyone else that responded.

northshore Loc: St. Paul, MN

The proper terminology is "expose to the right"-- if you Google that, you'll find lots of explanations. The quickie from Wikipedia: "ETTR is founded upon the linearity of CCD and CMOS sensors, whereby the electric charge accumulated by each subpixel is proportional to the amount of light it is exposed to (plus electronic noise). Although a camera may have a dynamic range of 5 or more stops, when image data is recorded digitally the highest (brightest) stop uses fully half of the discrete tonal values. This is because a difference of 1 stop represents a doubling or halving of exposure. The next highest stop uses half of the remaining values, the next uses half of what is left and so on, such that the lowest stop uses only a small fraction of the tonal values available. This may result in a loss of tonal detail in the dark areas of a photograph and posterization during post-production. By deliberately exposing to the right and then stopping down afterwards (during processing) the maximum amount of information is retained.

The technique was first described in 2003 by Michael Reichmann on his website,[1] after purportedly having a discussion with software engineer Thomas Knoll, the original author of Adobe Photoshop and developer of the Camera Raw plug-in."

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

Correct!

Seems strange to me that when this thread started, almost every response was talking about "over exposure" and the good, the bad and the ugly about it . . . discussions on "recovering blown out areas" (which is impossible even with RAW).

In fact "exposing to the right" means to have pixels showing on the histogram as far to the right as possible without going past the far right side. It does not suggest over exposing or clipping your highlights. The best suggestions in this thread in my opinion have been those that explain how to get the exposure correct in the first place, instead of how to "fix" poor exposure.

Just my 3 cents worth

glojo Loc: South Devon, England

A very good 3 cents worth but for action type pictures looking at histograms kind of defeats the object? (question)

Does the histogram give an EXCELLENT record of a historical event.. Something that has happened?

If all the conditions are exactly the same then a clever photographer can use that histogram to make their next image of that same event look so much better BUT...

If the light has changed, the reflections from the 'target' has changed or perish the though... The subject has moved so that the lighting is different then will the histogram give the perfect information?

Has anyone after three pages of discussion posted an image of a badly over expoosed picture and pointed out how well it can be recovered?

I TOTALLY agree with the comment about the perfect shot should not need correcting, but in the real World this might not be the case..

Hence my own very personal addage of:

Any picture is better than no picture.

I am not disagreeing with anyone regarding this but as the saying goes..

A picture paints a thousand words..

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

This is great info. Thank you. I use ACR for all my images (jpeg and RAW) and did not know this tool.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

You guys are all right to a certain degree. "Digital exposures should be overexposed as much as it is safe to do so before you clip the highlights." page 186 Martin Evening - Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers.

Please allow me to copy two paragraphs from the same book citing the same author, Martin Evening who has worked closely with Adobe Photoshop developers and is a professional photographer first and author second.

"Compared with film, shooting with a digital camera requires a whole new approach to determining what the optimum exposure should be. With film you tended to underexpose slightly for chrome emulsions (because you didn't want to risk blowing out the highlights). With negative emulsion film it was considered safer to over-expose as this would ensure you captured more shadow detail and thereby recorded a greater subject tonal range.

When capturing raw images on a digital camera it is best to overexpose as much as it is safe to do so before you clip the highlights. Most digital cameras such as digital SLRs and even the raw-enabled compacts are capable of capturing 12 bits of data, which is the equivalent to 4096 recordable levels per color channel. As you halve the amount of light that falls on the chip sensor, you potentially halve the number of levels that are available to record an exposure. Let us suppose that the optimum exposure for a particular photograph at a given shutter speed is f16. This exposure makes full use of the ship sensor's dynamic range and consequently there is the potential to record up to 4096 levels of information. If one were then to halve the exposure to f22, you would only have the ability to record up to 2048 levels per channel."

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

The judges at mytbcc.com are blowout phobic. I typically shoot with my Pan TZ3, because it is attached to my hip. It is always set -1ev, and the flash has a layer of toilet tissue to soften. Works out well. If blow out should occure, then there is always the clone tool.

The Ev adjustment surly varies with camera model, age of electronics, manufacturing varriations etc... a lot of valuable information in these pages, thank you all for educating us with references and personal experience.

wlgoode Loc: Globe, AZ

Gee, Jerry you'd make a good wingman!

glojo Loc: South Devon, England

Don't look now but I think I am being followed.


Am I seeing double?

Fisher Pete

When you shoot to the right you also have use of the maximum information from your sensor. If you image is not very average with a full range of contrast to get even a half decent image to display you will have to do some post processing regardless if you shoot raw or jpeg as your images will have maximum information from your sensor they will look washed out . Hope this not too confusing.