Very interesting article to be found here

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

you might even want to try the experiment

Alan,

I've been exposing to the right for ages. I start with a +1/3EC on both my 350D and 5D and go from there depending on the scene and the hystogram. (I tend to use partial metering as I get more consistant results, compared to matrix)

With my new 400mmf5.6, I seem to need even more EC, +1 and sometimes +2 to push it over to the right. Downside is the shutter speed then comes down, so I basically have to use at least ISO400 to keep it up to sensible values.

But the advantage is that the noise is a lot less than keeping the exposure as metered.

I also meant to say, that I use a neutral style on my 5D and reduce the contrast to -1 on the 350D - I find that the LCD  then gives a more accurate indication that the highlights are blown that if I keep them as standard.

---

Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

Ne nuntium necare

Mark,

Funnily enough I was in the garden yesterday afternoon playing with various settings on the 30D and found that by dialling in + 1/3 generally gave me better results. It was this that drew my attention to the article that I came across on an Adobe forum.

Talking about gardens. The best thing I ever bought was my Laptop. It allows me now to sit on the patio overlooking my beautiful (hard worked) garden whilst basking in 27 degs temperatures. Confirms that I made the right idea to retire early, my only regret being that I didn't do it 35 years earlier. . Now where's that cold beer??

Is the metering on Canon digital cameras that far out that it needs EC of 1/3 for every shot?  My problem is I have always trusted my film cameras to deliver correct exposure under normal lighting conditions and have never been disappointed.  I only compensate if I feel the camera might be fooled.  So, Mark/Alan, I have my 5d set to Landscape as I prefer the saturation better (years of Velvia I suppose).  Should I compensate or at least experiment with this?  I do use matrix for general purpose photography as I have always done, and find this suitable in most cases.  I suppose the Histogram is the only way to tell visually if it needs compensation.  Too far to the right can also blow out highlights if they start to climb up the side, so I look for a nice even peak at the centre dropping evenly on either side, and that seems to work for me.  Any further advice on this would be appreciated 

 

---

i think the metering on most digitals tries to give an even histogram, the trick is to expose a bit further than the normal mountain type histogram (obviously it all depends on what your shooting as to what your histogram looks like) , you really have to be careful with blown highlights but it is worth it if you get it right. i find that a lot of complaints about noise are sometimes down to wrong exposure, once you bring the levels up to correct exposure you also bring the noise up in the shadows, by shooting to the right your never going to bring the shadow detail up (maybe take it down a little tho) cheers martyn

Keith,

I love it when I'm able to get a histogram appear as you describe but in reality seldom do. I've found that when taking images of pretty uniform colour distribution and no hard contrasts I can often get the histogram well distributed. Other than on these occasions I find the 30D tries to protect the highlights (often too much IMHO). Firing off a few test shots yesterday of the same subject and using different settings I found that by dialling in + 1/3 gave me a much better histogram spread, and like Mark, I have my camera set to -1 contrast (but have had it this way for a long time now).

Have you read the article (the link that I posted)? If not have a quick read, try what is suggested and see what you think.

Edit: Just two lines from the article mentioned:

Quote "This realization carries with it a number of important lessons, the most important of them being that if you do not use the right-hand fifth of the histogram for recording some of your image you are in fact wasting fully half of the available encoding levels of your camera." Unquote

KeithT:

Is the metering on Canon digital cameras that far out that it needs EC of 1/3 for every shot?  My problem is I have always trusted my film cameras to deliver correct exposure under normal lighting conditions and have never been disappointed.  I only compensate if I feel the camera might be fooled.  So, Mark/Alan, I have my 5d set to Landscape as I prefer the saturation better (years of Velvia I suppose).  Should I compensate or at least experiment with this?  I do use matrix for general purpose photography as I have always done, and find this suitable in most cases.  I suppose the Histogram is the only way to tell visually if it needs compensation.  Too far to the right can also blow out highlights if they start to climb up the side, so I look for a nice even peak at the centre dropping evenly on either side, and that seems to work for me.  Any further advice on this would be appreciated 

It's only applicable if you are shooting raw - shooting this way with Jpeg will result in washy looking shots as a rule.

If you look on most of the forums, most people seem to give -1/3 to -2/3 EC to retain the highlights - I've never had that when shooting Jpeg, generally finding the metering to be spot on.

I find that matrix metering is probably more accurate - but becuase it uses some sort of clever algorithum to calculate the correct exposure based on what it see's its not consistant - so I find that I can't just look at a scene and dial in EC to suit but have to take a test shot first.

But thats just me - if matrix works ok, then thats obvously fine! Funnily enough I was taking some bird of prey shots last weekend, and found that I couldn't dial enough EC in to get the exposure to the right with average metering - so I switched to matrix and it did a better job. I generally prefer spot metering or manual with BIF but I was messing around!

---

Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

Ne nuntium necare

OK, I have been looking into this a bit more and think I understand that the reason for exposing to the right is to enable a  better signal to noise ratio with the best possible dynamic range? My next theory may sound dumb, but with the EOS full frame cameras at least, the signal to noise ratio is almost optimum anyway (800 iso is almost grain/noiseless) and therefore I can't see the value in pushing it further by exposing more to the right than perhaps working with a normal central histogram.  Is my thinking wrong on this and should I do more reading and experimentation?  Moving the histogram further to the right effectively reduces the iso rating, so, as one article puts it, there is some trade off by doing this.  If this is the case, why not just choose the correct iso rating for the job in hand?

---

Yay! Good find :D

---

My Gallerie, PLEASE CLICK!

KeithT:

OK, I have been looking into this a bit more and think I understand that the reason for exposing to the right is to enable a  better signal to noise ratio with the best possible dynamic range? My next theory may sound dumb, but with the EOS full frame cameras at least, the signal to noise ratio is almost optimum anyway (800 iso is almost grain/noiseless) and therefore I can't see the value in pushing it further by exposing more to the right than perhaps working with a normal central histogram.  Is my thinking wrong on this and should I do more reading and experimentation?  Moving the histogram further to the right effectively reduces the iso rating, so, as one article puts it, there is some trade off by doing this.  If this is the case, why not just choose the correct iso rating for the job in hand?

Canon users won't have much to gain from this trick, the DIGIC II (and III?) does a fine job of removing digital noise anyway.

Boltondave:

KeithT:

OK, I have been looking into this a bit more and think I understand that the reason for exposing to the right is to enable a  better signal to noise ratio with the best possible dynamic range? My next theory may sound dumb, but with the EOS full frame cameras at least, the signal to noise ratio is almost optimum anyway (800 iso is almost grain/noiseless) and therefore I can't see the value in pushing it further by exposing more to the right than perhaps working with a normal central histogram.  Is my thinking wrong on this and should I do more reading and experimentation?  Moving the histogram further to the right effectively reduces the iso rating, so, as one article puts it, there is some trade off by doing this.  If this is the case, why not just choose the correct iso rating for the job in hand?

Canon users won't have much to gain from this trick, the DIGIC II (and III?) does a fine job of removing digital noise anyway.

Yeah.  I agree here Dave.  This is especially so with the Canon full frame cameras where signal to noise is phenomonal at 800 iso.

---

KeithT:

Yeah.  I agree here Dave.  This is especially so with the Canon full frame cameras where signal to noise is phenomonal at 800 iso.

The 350D's no slouch either.

I think one has to bear in mind that both Thomas Knoll (the original author of Photoshop) and Michael Riechmann (a respected tutor and Gallery owner in Canada) are seeking 'Pefection'. Here follows a short clip from the link I posted earlier and I think the points that I have highlighted in red are worth taking note of. I think it fair to say that for the average photographer not desirous of making a living from photography the never-ending search for perfection won't enter into the equation. From my own personal point of view - whilst I shall never attain the dizzy heights of these gentlemen I have the type of inquisitive mind at least to understand what I 'should' be doing whether I actually do it or not. Keith - in respect to your point about the histogram. You will notice from the histogram screen shots (in the link) that the one being pushed further to the right is still contained within acceptable boundries - the highlights are not being clipped. I also think the point that Ian makes regarding further developments in software (see below) is something well worth taking note of, not only in respect of the discussion in this thread but for photography in general. 

Digital guru Ian Lyons has some comments on this technique with some insights as to how digital compares to what we've been used to with film...

Basically the ideal exposure is as Michael describes: get your histogram as close to the right side as possible but not so close as to cause the over exposure indicator to flash. The ideal exposure ensures that you have maximum number of levels describing your image without loosing important detail in the highlights. The closer you get to this ideal then the more of those levels are being used to describe your shadows. If you underexpose an image to the extent that the shadows block, which is often what folk do to protect their highlights; then you will need to open them again to ensure the final image is as you require. The problem with this approach is that we only have 128 levels available to the shadows. You start pulling curves, etc to open the shadows and you'll get posterisation, etc.

We need to get away from the concepts of exposure that have served us well with film. The CCD/CMOS isn't film and does not react like film in the highlight shadow regions. Exposure on film tends to roll-off smoothly in the shadows and highlights. With digital the capture is linear and there is no roll-off. Unfortunately (as Thomas has indicated) the behavior of these sensors isn't perfect and we can (often do) get one or two channels going into saturation (blowing). This was a major problem with the Canon D30 and the current version of Adobe Camera Raw simply can't handle such images. Thomas knows my thoughts on this and I know his.

Its worth noting that I've not yet seen a "linear" raw image from a Canon EOS D30/60 or 10D that went full-scale, close but not all the way. This means that even though existing conversion apps might not meet your needs. So far as the raw conversion apps go I am confident that things will improve, but in the meantime I really do urge folk to look at this technique. Remember that you will likely still have the CRW file for a long time. It really is your equal of the negative; don't trash it. Even if the current crop of conversion apps can't handle the blown highlights future apps will. However, NOTHING will ever get you back the lost shadow detail.

I realised that I actually printed this article out some time ago, Alan.  However, it all seems a bit too perfectionist to me.  Over many years I have come to the point where I can usually judge a scene just by looking at it and in the past, with slide film, have only lost a few to highlight clipping or under exposure.  This is not to say one shouldn't come to terms with the more scientific approaches.  I guess I am pretty much an earth person really.  Here is one article that just about did my brain in for its complexities of the EOS 5D meter.  http://www.brisk.org.uk/photog/histo2.html

I think I will do as I always have, and read the situation by eye untill I get more accustomed to the digital techniques on offer.  Even though this hit and miss method has served me well over the years, I'm sure I am wrong and will need to get to grips with histogram readings sooner or later.

---

Keith I've been using digital since 2001, within a couple of day I was totally sold on the values of using the histogram and also shooting to the right, which to my mind is essential when pursuing my favourite pastime of shooting flowers.

Mind you I must admit to being a very lazy person, so I found it far easier to use manual and  the histogram than use/learn all the various other functions of a digicam/DSLR

Harry

---

MY GALLERY