We're all doing it wrong (unless you ETTR)

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

when recovering exposure with portraits captured too dark is very risky because its not the luminance noise thats the problem. its the colour noise that can apply a really ill and sick looking tint to your skin tones. I can see them in the above portrait examples as a green horrible texture.

 

[An Exception]

Whatever works for you I guess

Just hope you don't start shooting at ISO6400 and then try to push 4 stops that's all.

I said 4 stops was an extreme example, I then gave a 'real world' example.

btw...what kind of subject? If you mean shots like these 2 posed gentleman here, you have all the time in the world.

Not when they are complete strangers!

Try shooting a Bride walking down the aisle.

Precisely why ETTL would come in handy, I cant count how many wedding dresses I'v seen blown out by wedding togs.

But let's say I didn't want to do this whole ETTL thing as anyone who isn't ETTR is doing it wrong, what kind of exposure would I have ended up with.

Well by increasing the exposure slider in LR3 until I'm fairly happy with the exposure in the centre of his face at least I get the below results.

Now his skin was a little blown out on the right, but his poor silver hair wouldn't have stood a chance.
Now if I'd exposed the shot like this in camera, I personally would have binned it, maybe I could have used the recovery slider to recover some of the skin, but the transition between texture and no texture can look ugly, also this slider seems to mess with skin tones if used too much, but there would be no hope in hell in recovering that hair...

So what's worse, barely perceptible noise, or massively blown out areas of highlight detail?

 

[An Exception]

when recovering exposure with portraits captured too dark is very risky because its not the luminance noise thats the problem. its the colour noise that can apply a really ill and sick looking tint to your skin tones. I can see them in the above portrait examples as a green horrible texture.

Haven't used ANY noise reduction, and is likely reflected colour that was in front of them (as it can be seen in the original exposure), also remember these are SOC and no colour correction has been applied...
Also colour noise on this Sony sensor is pretty minimal...

 

[Raymond Lin]

There is no point to debate this...because this is the first time i have ever encountered exposed to the left in digital. You seem to set on your way of working and we just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

if I was that concerned I would be shooting with highlight tone priority and get a better exposure on the skin.

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

Haven't used ANY noise reduction, and is likely reflected colour that was in front of them (as it can be seen in the original exposure), also remember these are SOC and no colour correction has been applied...
Also colour noise on this Sony sensor is pretty minimal...

I don't doubt the quality of your recovery I have done enough of my own I just would never trust or rely on it myself.

 

[An Exception]

Below is how the final image came out, with actually little processing involved.

 

[An Exception]

There is no point to debate this...because this is the first time i have ever encountered exposed to the left in digital. You seem to set on your way of working and we just have to agree to disagree.

Nor had I when I was shooting with Canon sensors, as they arn't that well suited to this technique...

 

[An Exception]

I don't doubt the quality of your recovery I have done enough of my own I just would never trust or rely on it myself.

I understand your reluctance, it took me a little while to trust it coming from a camera that didn't respond well to lifting shadows, however if you had taken the picture I showed above, and put your spot meter on the middle of his face, then half his head would have been nuked, so...

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

I understand your reluctance, it took me a little while to trust it coming from a camera that didn't respond well to lifting shadows, however if you had taken the picture I showed above, and put your spot meter on the middle of his face, then half his head would have been nuked, so...

No I'm sorry I really wouldn't. I'm not one of the photographers who are happy to recover to a general histogram state. I know exactly what light and exposure I want from every shot I take otherwise it goes in the bin or never gets captured. I work in a studio and its my job to ensure light is nailed at ..0.. and that quality stays with me when I leave the studio too.

 

[An Exception]

^^^
In which case your missing out on allot of nice captures...

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

^^^
In which case your missing out on allot of nice captures...

I think you'll find I certainly am not. Just because I say I am deleting pictures that aren't satisfactory doesn't mean they are kodak moments. If something was a stunning capture then yes I would recover as best as I could but I simply don't usually press the shutter unless I am happy.

If a shot of mine comes out like that then my flash batteries haven't cycled or by mistake my metering is tripped elsewhere but seeing as I shoot mainly fully manual this rarely happens.

 

[An Exception]

Well I'v just looked through the portfolio on your website, and while I won't deny there are some very good shot's, there are however also quite a few with blown highlights...

 

[Raymond Lin]

What I can deduct from this is that while most people try to get a correct exposure from the get go, Ejizz purposely under exposes all his shots.

That fact just don't sit well with me, the fact that he purposely exposes his shots from in the first place so he can fix it later.

The guy with the silver hair you can argue with but if he had brown hair you would still done the same anyway so I don't find your argument there to be valid.

P.s. Who cares about blown highlights lol I don't know why people are scared of that. Really don't.

 

[An Exception]

What I can deduct from this is that while most people try to get a correct exposure from the get go, Ejizz purposely under exposes all his shots.

That fact just don't sit well with me, the fact that he purposely exposes his shots from in the first place so he can fix it later.

Better to be able to fix it later than not at all, so ETTL is better in areas of high contrast.

Also confirmed by the below review I posted earlier comparing exposures with the Sony sensor.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/canon-7d-vs-pentax-k-5-review/comparison.html#drtest

The guy with the silver hair you can argue with but if he had brown hair you would still done the same anyway so I don't find your argument there to be valid.

His hair is the worst part, but it's not as if the side of his face isn't nuked either, besides the same would happen with blond hair, and even dark hair would still look over exposed as it's reflective...

P.s. Who cares about blown highlights lol I don't know why people are scared of that. Really don't.

Maybe it's because I started out in photography mainly using artificial lighting and learning to expose correctly and I considered ANY blown highlights to be a major fail on my part, as in a studio or controlled environment it basically looks cheap and tacky, and like you don't know what your doing with either your lighting or camera settings.

I basically hold the same view for stuff in natural light, I like even exposure with out clipping either highlight or shadow detail, unless your going for a deliberate specific look like a silhouette for example.

Ultimately I care MAINLY about the final image rather than how I captured it, ETTL is just a tool to allow me to even out exposure in post by simply moving a slider (which you would have to do anyway as the camera never exposes exactly as you want it), it also allows me more flexibility in post ( a decent retoucher will advise you to leave at least 0.3 stops of room in the highlights ) as often if I expose an image with zero bias, I then actually have to 'fix' the image by reducing the exposure slider if I want to boost contrast or if I run a few of my actions etc. etc.

So as I said this is just a tool for me, and like most new tools, some folks will always be try to reject them at first, like they did with things like autofocus, I guess it's just how it is sometimes.

http://dmongan.tumblr.com/post/7891241232/resisting-change

I personally prefer to capitalise on technology as it evolves, and use everything in my arsenal to achieve what I set out to.

 

[OG]

I'll just jump on the band wagon here as well, does it really matter how other peoples shots look Ejizz? If it suits their style to have blown highlights and it actually looks (producing a more high class, bright and fun) then what's the big deal?

Rules are made to be broken and I think in the world of photography this stands very true and considering there are some extremely successful people making a living from their blown highlights I don't see the issue...

 

[An Exception]

I'll just jump on the band wagon here as well, does it really matter how other peoples shots look Ejizz? If it suits their style to have blown highlights and it actually looks (producing a more high class, bright and fun) then what's the big deal?

Rules are made to be broken and I think in the world of photography this stands very true and considering there are some extremely successful people making a living from their blown highlights I don't see the issue...

Conversely does it really matter how you expose a shot to avoid blown highlights Owen?

Plenty of people out there making a living with evenly exposed pictures, just they use things like fill flash to balance out exposure.

 

[OG]

To be perfectly honest not really, but then again for me it is just a hobby and I in no way claim to be a professional photographer.

I find myself adjusting the exposure dial to when it suits the situation, however if I am in a tricky situation with a high contrast scene I underexpose purely because it easier to recover shadows than it is to recover highlights, but thats just what I do. I'm happy with the way I take pictures and not suddenly going to go out of my way because some post on the internet told me I'm doing it all wrong.

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

If I have blown highlights I've wanted blown highlights.

 

[An Exception]

Yeh right, sure you did, and if any of my images have noise in them, it's because I wanted the noise there...