Histograms

Not in camera, no, but I occasionally check out the blinkies. In the main, exposure is a mix of metering and experience.
 
I look at them occasionally when there is complex lighting and it is not easy to return to redo the pictures but in the main I am stuck with my film attitudes.
 
If I'm using the Merrills then Yes, but otherwise No. And that's only because chimping a shot with the Merrills feels like a major commitment to your day..
 
I look at them.

I look at them in my EVF and although they may not be 100% accurate time with your camera and learning what you can get away with makes them useful. I also look at them when I'm processing my pictures.

Often though when processing my pictures one channel will be shown as blown out but the blown bit is only a tiny proportion of the shot (a red flower over there on the far left of the shot maybe) and I can ignore it :D

They are IMO useful.
 
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I generally have a look and try to ETTR without blowing the highlights. In bright sunlight, it's hard to tell how it's exposed without it as I generally have LCD screen brightness turned right up.
 
momoka said:
Why do you say that? Do you have an alternative check or rely on only experience?
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I prefer to ETTR and have Highlight Alert (Blinkies) on so in review I can see what, if anything, is clipping as overexposed and if nothing then I can adjust my exposure until something is or is very close to being overexposed

The beauty of Blinkies though is that it shows you where the overexposed areas are and you can then decide if it matters or not, the Histogram can tell you something is overexposed but not where, hence its not telling you anything useful

Dave
 
DG Phototraining said:
I prefer to ETTR and have Highlight Alert (Blinkies) on so in review I can see what, if anything, is clipping as overexposed and if nothing then I can adjust my exposure until something is or is very close to being overexposed

The beauty of Blinkies though is that it shows you where the overexposed areas are and you can then decide if it matters or not, the Histogram can tell you something is overexposed but not where, hence its not telling you anything useful

Dave
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Okay thank you.
 
I suspect people only look at the top and tail of in-camera histograms. Is there some benefit of looking at the middle?
 
Blinkies for me.
 
I know that I should do this (or something else) but in the excitement of the day I regularly forget to do so until I later see my mistakes! :(
 
I don't look at it because if I did, this photo will look wrong.

nsWlucS.jpg


Or this one.

6fFFo7t.jpg
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I don't look at it because if I did, this photo will look wrong.
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Lovely pictures but I don't see what this has to do with you not looking.

This is nothing to do with looking at histograms and more to do with making your own decisions and not caring if you blow out or under expose parts of the image.
 
woof woof said:
Lovely pictures but I don't see what this has to do with you not looking.

This is nothing to do with looking at histograms and more to do with making your own decisions and not caring if you blow out or under expose parts of the image.
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The Histogram will show a lot of clipping, if I following it and try not to have any then they wouldn't look like that.
 
ianp5a said:
I suspect people only look at the top and tail of in-camera histograms. Is there some benefit of looking at the middle?
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It can tell you whether the overall image is trending towards under or overexposure, which just looking at the image and 'Blinkies' may not tell you. You may be able to increase the exposure with only a minor increase in any areas already overexposed. If shooting in RAW you could also learn how much overexposure is recoverable. Because the Histogram is a representation of an in camera generated Jpeg with setting applied, as has been mentioned above, it may show overexposure when none as occurred depending on the Picture Control/Style set. How you camera reacts to certain scenes, and how the Histogram displays the information. If you can be bothered of course. ;) Whatever works for you. (the general you;))

I mainly use the 'Blinkies', but on difficult scenes I look at the Histogram to hopefully tell me more about the exposure. My new camera (D500) seems to be more inconsistent than my previous cameras exposure wise. :( Something I noticed by looking at the Histograms. On a recent trip I started to use Bracketing in conjunction with the Continuous shooting mode to capture scenes quicker until I get more used to this camera. I may not be able to anticipate how this camera will measure a scene, time will tell. :rolleyes:
 
droj said:
Not in camera
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This is where, in camera, it is most important for
me in wildlife situations for example. I mostly work
in extreme light conditions and I want to make sure
that I won't have bad surprises in PP.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
This is where, in camera, it is most important for
me in wildlife situations for example. I mostly work
in extreme light conditions and I want to make sure
that I won't have bad surprises in PP.
Click to expand...
Yep definitely agree often for wildlife you can't choose the light
I try to expose to the right so the histogram helps
 
Kodiak Qc said:
And I to the left, so the histogram helps too!
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Do you shoot to the left to avoid overexposure in bright sun ?
With my canon camera if I underexpose I can get noise but if there's bright areas I do try to bracket the exposure
 
LCPete said:
With my canon camera if I underexpose I can get noise
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I can't reply to that since I'm a Nikon user but with my
gear + my RAW processor I found out that I have great
latitude in the low keys without generating disturbing
noise… latitude no one has with the high keys.
LCPete said:
I do try to bracket the exposure
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I tried that too a long time ago (before the D3X) and
was never happy but since I don't bother. Things got
even better when I changed RAW converter; I could
redo successfully files I abandoned because of the
lack of DR retrieving power.

None of this is more important than DR. My four bodies
are serving me well in this.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I don't look at it because if I did, this photo will look wrong.
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That's the point, Raymond, the screen preview
I only use for composition considerations and
light ratios. The histogram is for the DR.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
I can't reply to that since I'm a Nikon user but with my
gear + my RAW processor I found out that I have great
latitude in the low keys without generating disturbing
noise… latitude no one has with the high keys.

I tried that too a long time ago (before the D3X) and
was never happy but since I don't bother. Things got
even better when I changed RAW converter; I could
redo successfully files I abandoned because of the
lack of DR retrieving power.

None of this is more important than DR. My four bodies
are serving me well in this.
Click to expand...
Yes you do get more latitude with the Nikon sensors with dynamic range
But I find if I push the exposure as far to the right as I can without overexposure my image quality with Canon is excellent even at higher ISO levels
I think part of it was that my Canon 7D MK 1 does underexpose to a degree though my 7D MK 2 is more accurate on exposure
 
Reassuring to find I'm not alone. I gave up on blinkies too, because they I found they were often blinking when there wass nothing to blink at.
 
I treat the blinkies as a guide and don't worry too much about them if I get similar "blow out" when I close my eyes when looking at a scene. Bright highlights such as a Sun reflection off a car or something else very reflective will be blown out but that's unavoidable so I don't worry about it. Similarly bright white clouds are often close to burned out but if I get blinkies on them I tend to dial in a bit of EC to eliminate them (if possible without overdarkening the rest of the scene) or at least reduce them.
 
Having recently moved from the electronic viewfinder on Sony mirror-less, I'm finding it hard changing the way I shoot with my Nikon. Not only does the viewfinder not reflect what your photo will look like after shooting with the given aperture and shutter speed, you can't get a histogram overlay either. It seems that the histogram can only be viewed when reviewing images, or by shooting in live mode? I always like to see if there is clipping from the histogram before I take the shot.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I don't look at it because if I did, this photo will look wrong.

nsWlucS.jpg


Or this one.

6fFFo7t.jpg
Click to expand...

No it wouldn't. The histogram tells you what you've got on the sensor, it's up to you to decide whether that's right or not. It's the camera's meter that would get very confused by these two images and actually it's the histogram (and blinkies) that would confirm you're not getting the result you wanted.

There is no 'correct' shape to a histogram and it will vary massively according to the subject and the result you're after.
 
'Expose to the right' :)
 
Raymond Lin said:
The Histogram will show a lot of clipping, if I following it and try not to have any then they wouldn't look like that.
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Already answered by me and more directly by Hoppy and I could argue that looking at the histogram could help you get shots like this as with an OVF or with an EVF and when not using WYSIWYG I'd guess that you'd have to guess what the end result will be like. With the histogram you'd see the clipping. This would not however stop you taking the clipped shot :D
 
Raymond Lin said:
I don't look at it because if I did, this photo will look wrong.

nsWlucS.jpg


Or this one.

6fFFo7t.jpg
Click to expand...
But you could easily expose those photos in same way using histogram only. Using histogram doesn't mean "keeping it in the middle" it means understanding it and using it to get effects your after in fast and easy way.
I use it often, especially if I work in bad light conditions.
 
Gil Bev said:
Having recently moved from the electronic viewfinder on Sony mirror-less, I'm finding it hard changing the way I shoot with my Nikon. Not only does the viewfinder not reflect what your photo will look like after shooting with the given aperture and shutter speed, you can't get a histogram overlay either. It seems that the histogram can only be viewed when reviewing images, or by shooting in live mode? I always like to see if there is clipping from the histogram before I take the shot.
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That's the difference between an EVF and an OVF

An optical viewfinder has other advantages, but you do lose the modern fancy stuff.

You should have known that before you switched. It really should have been part of your decision making process.
 
I believe that reference to the histogram as an aid to correct exposure is essential. I have cut a small picture of one out of a magazine and sellotaped it to the back of my Yashica Electro 35 so I can be reassured by being able to look at a histogram every time I take a picture.
 
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