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63KiB, 640x457, Live-View-Histogram-640x457.jpg

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 15:04:17 No.3283143 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>3283145 >>3283399 >>3283404 >>3283717

I took my first photos on film when I wa really young and exposure was just a number that must to be 0, then on my first dslr I was used to compensate my exposure according with the previous shot, with a trial and error approach.
Now my camera have really good live view capabilityes and I expose my pics only with the histogram most of the time, completely ignoring my exposition indicator. I can read it according with my composition already thinking to the next step in postproduction and it give me far more information. So, it's quite usual to me to have an underexposed or overexposed photo to avoid pure white or black pixel.

What do you think? What's your way?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 15:10:34 No.3283145 Report

Quoted By: >>3283150

>>3283143
Auto, aperture priority or sunny 16, depending on the camera of course

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 15:18:11 No.3283150 Report

Quoted By: >>3283154

>>3283145
>sunny 16

Really? But most of lenses don't start to degrade in quality after f10 due to diffraction?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 15:22:32 No.3283154 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283150
>he thinks sunny 16 is a hard and fast rule, and not an exposure guideline
You shoot at 1/500 f8 instead of 1/125 f16 dumbass

Muhmegapickels !!0Z+XAssRGPW

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 1499664738758.jpg, 54KiB, 612x612

Muhmegapickels !!0Z+XAssRGPW Sat 28 Apr 2018 20:16:38 No.3283399 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283143
this is why people shouldn't start on digital

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 20:21:49 No.3283404 Report

Quoted By: >>3283482

>>3283143
How do you use the histogram to expose your photos?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 20:28:40 No.3283414 Report

Quoted By:

If you have a canon dslr with magic lantern I find a waveform monitor is a much better exposure indicator than a histogram. If you're a true autist false color is the best of all, even if its impossible to use.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 20:53:24 No.3283438 Report

Quoted By:

Live view is gay

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 23:05:38 No.3283482 Report

Quoted By: >>3283489 >>3283511

>>3283404

In first instance I use it to avoid clipping, and to know how far I'm from it. In second instance it give me an idea about the exposure, and the distribution of the luminance. A left shifted istogram will probably mean an underexposure, shifted right the contrary. The goal is to use all the dynamic available to have a good contrasted picture and the maximum quality for postproduction.

I give you an example: we all have studied that with snow we have to overexpose our pics to achieve some good whites. My experience with istogram and post is that it's not a good idea because it will result in a compression of the dinamics of the picture. I prefer to have an underexposed raw with data for every value of luminance that I will be able to compress lately in post.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO histogram as an exposure guide.jpg, 321KiB, 2176x653

Anonymous Sat 28 Apr 2018 23:34:58 No.3283489 Report

Quoted By: >>3283648 >>3283672

>>3283482
There are a number of misconceptions I see at work in your post.

>In first instance I use it to avoid clipping, and to know how far I'm from it.
While this is certainly a valid use for a histogram, if you are metering your photos correctly, then this is fairly easy to avoid. For example, if you have spot exposure set and the exposure area is on something extremely dark while the sky is simultaneously bright - and you can confirm this, by the way, by simply looking at the metered value (shutter speed, aperture or ISO) to see if it's appropriate for the photo. If not, use a different metering method or use exposure compensation. It's not hard to learn how to use your camera.

>In second instance it give me an idea about the exposure, and the distribution of the luminance. A left shifted istogram will probably mean an underexposure, shifted right the contrary. The goal is to use all the dynamic available to have a good contrasted picture and the maximum quality for postproduction.
Here's where beginners who never studied photographic composition formally or learned about how camera meters work can be led astray by assuming things about what the histogram does. I don't say this to be elitist, I'm just explaining that people have been exposing photos correctly without digital histograms for a long time. Didn't you ever wonder how they did that?

The histogram can show whether a photo is under/overexposed for certain scenes with flat lighting, yes, that's true. Your camera's metering would do that for you otherwise, though. The histogram is just not designed to compose the lighting in your photo. The histogram shows you what light levels ARE in the photo, not what SHOULD BE in it. Many aesthetic photos will have histograms that do not look like centered humps. For example, photos of largely white scenes or largely dark scenes don't need their histograms moved over to the middle. In many cases, doing so is the best way to ruin the photo! See pic related.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 29 Apr 2018 00:35:45 No.3283511 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283482
>with snow we have to overexpose
Totally up to what you're shooting with. I'm ether underexposing, or leaving everything it at 0ev in snow. Loosing detail otherwise.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 29 Apr 2018 07:40:11 No.3283648 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283489

You are right, I've never studied photography. At contrary I've studied a lot how to compose images and use softwares and I have a very technical formation in general. I've studied architecture and engineering. That's probably why I'm more confortable with histogram than with all the exposition rules I've read around.

>I'm just explaining that people have been exposing photos correctly without digital histograms for a long time. Didn't you ever wonder how they did that?

Surely I did. And the answer was fascinating, but really I can't figure why I should do that myself today.

>The histogram can show whether a photo is under/overexposed for certain scenes...

I agree with you. But I'm not sayg I look for a centered histogram every time, just that seeing the firt pic I probably would have tried to shoot it a bit brighter, to have more details in clouds. That's could looks sensless if in post i would obtain anyway an image like the firs one, but i think it give me more detail.

Dunno, that's my idea, and it's exacly because I've never studied that I's asking for an opinion.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 29 Apr 2018 09:02:50 No.3283672 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283489
>The histogram can show whether a photo is under/overexposed for certain scenes with flat lighting, yes, that's true. Your camera's metering would do that for you otherwise, though. The histogram is just not designed to compose the lighting in your photo. The histogram shows you what light levels ARE in the photo, not what SHOULD BE in it. Many aesthetic photos will have histograms that do not look like centered humps. For example, photos of largely white scenes or largely dark scenes don't need their histograms moved over to the middle. In many cases, doing so is the best way to ruin the photo! See pic related.

This is the perfect example of why you SHOULD use your histogram. That screenshot is cropped on the right but the right side of the histogram will show it's overexposed. Much like a power tool or a car or a bike, your histogram is only going to be useful if you know what it's used for.
If you're taking a photo of the moon, you'd want your histogram to look like the one one the left because it's obviously going to be mostly dark with nothing on the far right or far left.
If you took it with the bulk in the middle, you'd see that the lighter areas are overexposed and by the time you corrected it, you'd probably have the shot on the left.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 29 Apr 2018 11:17:43 No.3283717 Report

Quoted By:

>>3283143
>I can read it according with my composition already thinking to the next step in postproduction and it give me far more information. So, it's quite usual to me to have an underexposed or overexposed photo to avoid pure white or black pixel.
I do this as well, I often overexpose the sky slightly because I know I can recover most of the detail in post and the extra exposure will make the shadows cleaner

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