Since I picked digital camera in 2007, I have been purposely underexposing my pictures to avoid blown highlight. It seemed served me well. Now I have doubts.
Go ahead tell that I suck.... , and show me the light.
i think the idea is that the sensor can't capture the full dynamic range of many scenes so you have to lose either highlights or shadow detail. take your pick. RAW can help somewhat. my 5D MK II has highlight priority mode and a d-lighting type thing as well.
i used to see dingy shots all the time. now it's the opposite. just totally nuked and blown way the heck out shots. what were they thinking?
Kaouthia
Posts: 3,080
Lancaster, England, United Kingdom
Good Egg Productions wrote: Why purposely UNDERexpose?
Why not just properly expose?
Because sometimes, properly exposing for the midtones can completely blow out the highlights beyond recovery. Sometimes it's better to shoot to preserve those highlights and bump the midtones in post.
I treat digital the same way I treat slide film, I expose for the highlights. And of course by this I mean the highlights I want detail in. If I want them blown, then I expose for that. Essentially I'm thinking of the zone system, but in reverse.
After that, it simply a matter of how much control you have over the lighting in the scene. If you have a lot, adjust to taste so that you have the overall exposure you want. If not, then the shadows are forced to fall where they may.
Having said that, it's worth doing some tests to see how much highlight detail you can adequately recover. You may not have to dial down your exposure as much as you think you do.
Good Egg Productions wrote: Why purposely UNDERexpose?
Why not just properly expose?
What is a proper exposure? Photo 101 would say an incident reading or a grey card reading. Ok... But what if you're photographing a high contrast scene? Using B&W film, you may get a different answer after spot metering the shadows and highlights knowing that you'll be using compensatory development. Using Color Neg, you might choose a different exposure. Slide film? A different one. Digital? Kind of between slide and neg.
Beyond that, how do you want the scene to look? How do you want the person (if there is one) portrayed?
You learn to "properly expose" so that you can accurately and consistently place your midtones at an exact point. That skill should, if you learn properly, allow you to place any tone wherever you want it. At this point, proper, is the exposure setting that will allow you to accurately and precisely achieve your vision for the shot.
Good Egg Productions wrote: Why purposely UNDERexpose?
Why not just properly expose?
Doesn't sound any different than shooting transparency film. We'd make sure our highlights were within the film's range and use lighting skills to bring up the shadow areas.
I typically underexposed my transparency films by 1/3 stop to boost the color depth and saturation. With the introduction of digital, transparency shooters had an advantage since we were already exposing for the highlights and not the shadows like neg shooters.
It seems, digital has a MUCH higher dynamic range than transparency film ever did.
Add to that, the fact that we don't need color conversion filters makes it a great tool!
Because sometimes, properly exposing for the midtones can completely blow out the highlights beyond recovery. Sometimes it's better to shoot to preserve those highlights and bump the midtones in post.
Sometimes, that's the point of the highlights.
And if they are blown beyond required recovery, then you've screwed up the lighting.
RAW processing is pretty amazing lately and can recover stuff that blows my mind. I've brought stuff back as an exercise that were overexposed by at least 3 stops.
It all depends on what's important. If you need to blow out highlights to make the rest of the picture work, go for it. If you can preserve highlights and adjust the rest in PS, do it.
The whole "expose to the right" only works if your only concern is noise. That's the best solution for lower noise. But if you need your whitest "white" to be mid-tone for a specific purpose, you cannot shoot that way.
Shoot however you like for the specific purpose, but try to understand what happens when you expose differently.
When shooting on a sunny day in shade with a contrasty background I think it can be effective to blow the highlights to lose definition in the background. There were some shots in critique yesterday with the same situation; the model was too dark and there was an uninteresting, properly exposed park scene behind her. Oh, and you suck.... nothing to do with your photography IMO.
So many things change with exposure that I really think it's a matter of persnonal taste and what you have in mind for the picture.
Seriously, I don't believe there's a 100% "Right way" to do things, what I I'm going High Key? What if I want a deep black scene with some little stuff visible?
Expose to what YOU want, and ignore what others say (unless they are paying clients)
Connor Photography wrote: now I am not so sure... Go ahead tell that I suck.... , and show me the light.
Yep... not gonna argue with ya... peeps get tossed in the brig around here for that... Wanna 'see the light'?... feast your eyes upon the 200+ images on this port... you're welcome...
In general I expose for the highlights, but there exceptions depending on what is being shot and the lighting conditions. I sort expose for the highlights process for the shadows. Basically the highlights I figure I have about .5-1f/stops of forgiveness, and the shadows are about 1.5-2 f/stops. And of course I shoot RAW.
actually your portfolio looks fine to me, except that last image. the peeps in the BG being 'attached' to your arms are distracting. clone them out? best wishes OP. lots of good thoughts in the thread.
It depends on what you're looking for. If you want the highlights preserved in the background, expose for the background (however much you want it) and use fill light on the subject.
Essentially you have two choices: 1 correctly expose for your subject and use fill flash, or 2. underexpose the ambient light and use flash for correct exposure on your subject.
Mike Kelcher
Posts: 11,629
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
The best way to do it is...whatever works for you that enables you to achieve the results you desire. There are many methods of determining the proper exposure for an image. However, before I get into the various methods, it helps to consider what the subject's situation is. If the subject is evenly lit top to bottom and left to right, that's "not too bad". If the background or foreground is important, and either (or both), are lighter or darker than the subject, that's "a bit more complicated". If the subject is not evenly lit and very important parts of the subject are in very contrasty light, then....you better learn how to get to be really good, (or really lucky), really quickly.
I use a meter, a lot. I seldom use the one in the camera and usually shoot in manual mode. I use a spot reflective meter (Minolta Spotmeter F), and also a Sekonic L-358 incident meter. Both measure ambient and flash lighting. The spot meter I use with a gray card. With even light on the subject, I tend to favor the incident meter becaue it's easier to use. If the subject is in contrasty light, I prefer a gray card and reflected spot meter. In addition to metering, I use the "histy-blinker" feature of my camera. I like that thing. It shows me (fairly accurately), what parts of the image are blown out. I seldom shut that feature off.
Having owned a photo lab for 16 years, I can tell you with certainty that "proper exposure" is waaaaaaay more important in digital than film ever was. Probably the films with the most exposure "latitude" were Agfa-made color print films. They would render a "generally acceptable" image over a 5 F-stop range from 200% underexposed to 300% overexposed. Comparatively, most slide films had an exposure latitude of +/- 50%. Digital is a lot like slide films but with even slightly tighter tolerances.
Digital cameras are not capable of properly recording a wide range of light in single exposure. This issue can be dealt with in a number of ways, in many circumstances. In some situations, a change in the lighting will do the trick, in other situations, an HDR image is the perfect solution, in a studio...with the right equipment...there's always a solution. Outdoors, using available light, sometimes the best solution is to change locations or return another day.
Looking at a histogram, can work well in many instances....if you understand how such things work, but relying on a histogram doesn't work as well for me with a high-key background and a light-skinned blonde, model in a white dress. It seems that no matter what method of determining the desired exposure a person uses, it's important to get it right....when the shot is being taken...as opposed to "fixing it in post", even if shooting in RAW does help. The best method of getting the exposure right varies depending on the type of light, the subject, foreground, and background. Each method we are able to somewhat "master" and/or use to our advantage, is like another "tool" that we can use to achieve the intended results.
If the intended (exposure), results are not being achieved, then one has to consider things like...Did I use the right "tools" for determining exposure?, Was the light too contrasty? Did I use the right methodology? What could I have done differently? etc. Proper exposure is one of the principle "building blocks" in the foundation of being a good photographer. If you're not getting decent exposures, stop everything else and fix what's wrong before you spend another ounce of time, energy or money on anything else. If this is happening to you, turn on your histy-blinker if you have one, and get a meter (a Sekonic L-358 is a good meter and about $150 in good used condition on ebay). Remember, you do have a reflective meter in most cameras, so if you get a gray card you can use that which might help. They are relatively cheap. I like the cloth ones from Lastolite.
Um, it has been my observation that just about the time anybody thinks they know everything is when the Universe sets out to prove them idiots. I would hesitate to tempt fate that way, my friend.
Paramour Productions wrote: What is a proper exposure? Photo 101 would say an incident reading or a grey card reading. Ok... But what if you're photographing a high contrast scene? Using B&W film, you may get a different answer after spot metering the shadows and highlights knowing that you'll be using compensatory development. Using Color Neg, you might choose a different exposure. Slide film? A different one. Digital? Kind of between slide and neg.
Beyond that, how do you want the scene to look? How do you want the person (if there is one) portrayed?
You learn to "properly expose" so that you can accurately and consistently place your midtones at an exact point. That skill should, if you learn properly, allow you to place any tone wherever you want it. At this point, proper, is the exposure setting that will allow you to accurately and precisely achieve your vision for the shot.
+1
Had I exposed this image properly, I would have hated it.
Mike Kelcher
Posts: 11,629
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Michael DBA Expressions wrote: Um, it has been my observation that just about the time anybody thinks they know everything is when the Universe sets out to prove them idiots. I would hesitate to tempt fate that way, my friend.
If you are referring to me, I don't know everything and openly admit that. Since I've been in the industry since 1968, I have learned a few things along the way. Most of what I've learned was because people taught me the things they knew. I'm very appreciative of that and feel that such sharing is a good thing. It was in that spirit that I wrote what I did, but I certainly don't claim to know it all. The more I learn, the more I realize that my knowledge of "the whole" is very tiny. However, I'm still willing to share what little I know. If that offends someone, I'm really not sorry.
Mario Guarneros
Posts: 49
Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
twoharts wrote: i think the idea is that the sensor can't capture the full dynamic range of many scenes so you have to lose either highlights or shadow detail. take your pick. RAW can help somewhat. my 5D MK II has highlight priority mode and a d-lighting type thing as well.
i used to see dingy shots all the time. now it's the opposite. just totally nuked and blown way the heck out shots. what were they thinking?
If shooting RAW the highlight priority and D-lighting and the optimiser won't affect the image you will see in your computer, the best way to know exactly what you are getting while shooting RAW in the camera display is to switch all these to off and set it up in neutral.
Mike Kelcher
Posts: 11,629
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
-JAY- wrote: +1
Had I exposed this image properly, I would have hated it.
I think the "proper" exposure is whatever exposure produces the result you were seeking. If the exposure in this image were different, I'm not sure I'd like it as much either.
Select Models wrote: Yep... not gonna argue with ya... peeps get tossed in the brig around here for that... Wanna 'see the light'?... feast your eyes upon the 200+ images on this port... you're welcome...
while I do enjoy your port and its subjects ... without lighting and camera details it doesn't really help ...
The beautiful thing about digital is that it is cheap enough to experiment. In the time it takes to fool with this thread, you can find out. I think you'll see that pixels that have been pulled out of the shadows just don't look as good as those that were exposed lighter to begin with. Be prepared, though, to lose detail in the sky unless you have a lighting crew with you to balance things out. I spend a lot of time looking for how to get the sky out of my pictures for that reason. Usually a zoom lens lets me be selective about backgrounds.
John M Hoyt
Posts: 284
Greenville, South Carolina, US
Select Models wrote:
Yep... not gonna argue with ya... peeps get tossed in the brig around here for that... Wanna 'see the light'?... feast your eyes upon the 200+ images on this port... you're welcome...
Sweet Jesus... I wish I had just one rockin shot like these.
Doesn't sound any different than shooting transparency film. We'd make sure our highlights were within the film's range and use lighting skills to bring up the shadow areas.
I typically underexposed my transparency films by 1/3 stop to boost the color depth and saturation. With the introduction of digital, transparency shooters had an advantage since we were already exposing for the highlights and not the shadows like neg shooters.
It seems, digital has a MUCH higher dynamic range than transparency film ever did.
Add to that, the fact that we don't need color conversion filters makes it a great tool!
Yep - I haven't changed the way I expose that much from the years of shooting chrome. It was a major advantage to transitioning to digital for me, versus those shooting primarily negative film I'm sure. Missing, is the same drop by 1/3 stop to saturate, I used to do of course. Also since I shoot raw, sometimes I'll push the highlights a bit more than I would risk doing with slides.
Herman Surkis
Posts: 6,230
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Paramour Productions wrote: I treat digital the same way I treat slide film, I expose for the highlights. And of course by this I mean the highlights I want detail in. If I want them blown, then I expose for that. Essentially I'm thinking of the zone system, but in reverse.
After that, it simply a matter of how much control you have over the lighting in the scene. If you have a lot, adjust to taste so that you have the overall exposure you want. If not, then the shadows are forced to fall where they may.
Having said that, it's worth doing some tests to see how much highlight detail you can adequately recover. You may not have to dial down your exposure as much as you think you do.
Herman Surkis
Posts: 6,230
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Paramour Productions wrote:
What is a proper exposure? Photo 101 would say an incident reading or a grey card reading. Ok... But what if you're photographing a high contrast scene? Using B&W film, you may get a different answer after spot metering the shadows and highlights knowing that you'll be using compensatory development. Using Color Neg, you might choose a different exposure. Slide film? A different one. Digital? Kind of between slide and neg.
Beyond that, how do you want the scene to look? How do you want the person (if there is one) portrayed?
You learn to "properly expose" so that you can accurately and consistently place your midtones at an exact point. That skill should, if you learn properly, allow you to place any tone wherever you want it. At this point, proper, is the exposure setting that will allow you to accurately and precisely achieve your vision for the shot.
, and show me the light.
Oh, and you suck.... nothing to do with your photography IMO.
Wanna 'see the light'?... feast your eyes upon the 200+ images on this port... you're welcome... 
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