On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 12:50 AM, Bruce Walker <bruce.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now elsewhere you have explained that you want to doctor or calibrate
> your histogram in aid of calculating exposures for doing ETTR. You
> might want to consider that ETTR is considered by many to be no longer
> relevant and even harmful. I don't follow the notion anymore myself.
>
> Have you read this?
>
> http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/10/expose-to-the-right-is-a-bunch-of-bull.html
>
> Even doing nothing but RAW shooting I know that once you clip your
> highlights, they are gone. Pure white. No recovery possible. Complete
> loss of "value". Possibly still okay for showing to your parents. :-)
Ok. I've quickly read the article, and as I understand it it boils
down to this:
(A) Since ETTR was introduced noise in shadows was reduced. (Thus
there goes the initial motivation of ETTR.)
(B) In case of high contrast scenes it is better to underexpose to
catch a larger range of highlights instead of blowing them out to
white.
Now about (B) it makes a lot of sense in night scenes where there
is artificial lightning mainly because the main subject of those
photos are some lightened objects, thus we don't want to overexpose
those. And as said previously I've learned this the hard way.
(Moreover as the author says the same applies to other cases where we
have high contrast.)
But with (A) I tend to disagree somewhat... Although noise got
better at lower ISO and / or in more expensive cameras, in "consumer"
cameras like my K-30 the story is somewhat different: at ISO 800 the
noise is perceptible, and at ISO 1600 it becomes bothersome in
shadows. Thus if the scene permits me I would gladly try to apply ETTR
to save some of that noise. (Of course if I get to higher ISO, it
means my lightning is poor, thus most likely I must use a tripod or
some place to put my camera onto.)
Ciprian.
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