Understand "shooting to the right"

[breakdown]

I was reading up on shooting to the right and there is one thing I'm not too sure about: exposure compensation. Assuming that I'm shooting in RAW, I want to expose the picture so the histogram is as close to the right side as possible without blowing anything out correct?

My question is, looking around at other pictures, I've noticed that a lot are shot with a negative exposure bias. What is the reason for this? From my understand, you should always overexpose the picture a bit then bring everything down in the RAW editor. Are the underexposing for a reason? (besides just trying to create a dark mood since that should be possible just by making the picture darker in RAW editor correct?)

[liza]

First, you want the indicator just a hair to the right of center, not all the way to the right. The technique calls for slight overexposure.

As for those who underexpose, they will be introducing noise into their shots by doing that. I suppose they think it makes the shot look better, but in the long run, it really doesn't. I just try to get it right out of the camera, do some minor tweaks in RSE, and then crop/sharpen in Photoshop.

[ibdb]

For an outstanding technical explanation of shooting to the right, take a look at Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw.

[tzalman]

Maybe those people using negative EC were shooting contrasty scenes and were forced to dial down exposure to prevent highlight blow-out. Maybe they were metering incorrectly off a dark object or area which caused overexposure so they reduced it with EC. Or maybe they have found, as I have, that their cameras consistently overexpose slightly. For this reason, in situations were the photo cannot be reshot I keep EC at -1/3, preferring to preserve highlights even at the cost of quality.

[PhotosGuy]

I was reading up on shooting to the right and there is one thing I'm not too sure about: exposure compensation. Assuming that I'm shooting in RAW, I want to expose the picture so the histogram is as close to the right side as possible without blowing anything out correct? Maybe? Sometimes there are things in the shot that I let blow out as they aren't important.
Gray Card…White Paper. What’s best? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=58677) First, you want the indicator just a hair to the right of center, not all the way to the right. The technique calls for slight overexposure. Liza, I'm not sure what you are thinking of but, as written, "not all the way to the right." is generally wrong?

[elTwitcho]

I've found it's easier to expose the image as you want it to come out than exposing to the right and dialing it back down. For me it gets ugly in camera raw screwing around with what is essentially a wrong exposure trying to get it right. In my experience I've never been able to get it looking quite proper in camera RAW after over exposing it.

Personally I recommend against shooting to the right. That's just my experience

[PacAce]

I was reading up on shooting to the right and there is one thing I'm not too sure about: exposure compensation. Assuming that I'm shooting in RAW, I want to expose the picture so the histogram is as close to the right side as possible without blowing anything out correct?

My question is, looking around at other pictures, I've noticed that a lot are shot with a negative exposure bias. What is the reason for this? From my understand, you should always overexpose the picture a bit then bring everything down in the RAW editor. Are the underexposing for a reason? (besides just trying to create a dark mood since that should be possible just by making the picture darker in RAW editor correct?)
The use of a negative exposure bias in itself does not indicate that the image is being underexposed. All it means is that the photographer opted to expose the image with less exposure than what the camera would have selected. For example, if you are shooting the proverbial black cat in a black coal bin, the camera is going to set the exposure so that the cat and the coal bin come out mid-grayish looking. Knowing this, the photographer would dial in some negative exposure compensation so that the cat comes out black like it's supposed to be. In other words, the image is now correctly exposed, not overexposed as the camera would have set it and not underexposed as you would have thought because he used -EC. :)

However, if there were no object (of importance) in the shot brigher than a stop above mid-gray, he could have let the camera over expose the shot (instead of using -EC) and then he could have corrected the exposure in post processing and ended up with a less noisy picture. But not everybody subscribes to the idea of shooting to the right because not all images lend themselves for shooting to the right. Although, in the case of the black cat in the black coal bin, it would hav been a perfect situation for shooting to the right. :)

[superdiver]

First, you want the indicator just a hair to the right of center, not all the way to the right. The technique calls for slight overexposure.

As for those who underexpose, they will be introducing noise into their shots by doing that. I suppose they think it makes the shot look better, but in the long run, it really doesn't. I just try to get it right out of the camera, do some minor tweaks in RSE, and then crop/sharpen in Photoshop.


So, you are refering to the bar on the screen on the back of the camera, correct? I have tried underexposing, and DONT like the results (noisy, like you said), but have not messed with "overexposing" for fear of ruining another shot.

Essentially my camera has 2 "full stops" as stops in either direction (as I think of a full stop). When people say "one full stop", that means a "whole number" as a unit, correct? When I think of one stop to the right or left I think of the next place the dial will take me if I move it in that direction, not a "whole number"...

I have been forever confused with these terms, as if you couldnt tell...

Am I missing the forrest for the tree? Could someone dumb down an explination so and idiot like me could understand it....LOL

[Mark_Cohran]

Essentially my camera has 2 "full stops" as stops in either direction (as I think of a full stop). When people say "one full stop", that means a "whole number" as a unit, correct? When I think of one stop to the right or left I think of the next place the dial will take me if I move it in that direction, not a "whole number"...

I have been forever confused with these terms, as if you couldnt tell...

Am I missing the forrest for the tree? Could someone dumb down an explination so and idiot like me could understand it....LOL

When people say "one full stop", that means a "whole number" as a unit, correct? On the exposure compensation dial, yes. For aperture, shutter speed or ISO - it's the next setting that doubles or halves the light - 1/125 => 1/250th is a full stop. f2 => f2.8 is a full stop. ISO 200 => ISO 400 is a full stop.

So, if you set exposure compensation for a full stop of over exposure and you were in Av mode, you shutter speed would change to 1 full stop slower, for example 1/125th to 1/60th.

Mark

[Mcary]

I'm sure its been posted here before, But I think this explains the why and how of shooting to the right very nicely

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

"A 12 bit image is capable of recording 4,096 (2^12) discrete tonal values. One would think that therefore each F/Stop of the 5 stop range would be able to record some 850 (4096 / 5) of these steps. But, alas, this is not the case. The way that it really works is that the first (brightest) stop's worth of data contains 2048 of these steps — fully half of those available"

"Why? Because CCD and CMOS chips are linear devices. And, of course, each F/Stop records half of the light of the previous one, and therefore half the remaining data space available"

Mike

[ibdb]

So, you are refering to the bar on the screen on the back of the camera, correct? I have tried underexposing, and DONT like the results (noisy, like you said), but have not messed with "overexposing" for fear of ruining another shot.
"Shooting to the right" usually refers to the histogram more than the exposure compensation bar you're referring to, although there's clearly a link between the two.

Using my 20D and ACR I can very easily recover highlights that were overexposed at least a 1/2 stop in most cases, and sometimes more depending on the desired effect. It comes in handy shooting a dark subject in front of a bright background, shots with bright, cloudy skies, etc. I can recover those highlights because of the way the camera sensor works (see the quote above). I couldn't do the same with shadow detail underexposed by 1/2 stop or more -- noise would be a problem, as well as there just not being any detail there to recover.

[superdiver]

My histogram is almost always to the right when I look at the data from my pictures. And I always shoot with the "bar" set at zero...so does that mean that i am basically shooting to the right?

[liza]

Liza, I'm not sure what you are thinking of but, as written, "not all the way to the right." is generally wrong?

What I'm thinking is that you shouldn't blow the highlights completely by having the indicator all the way to the right side. Superdriver referred to it in his post, although the bar on my camera is on top and visible in the viewfinder.

[ibdb]

My histogram is almost always to the right when I look at the data from my pictures. And I always shoot with the "bar" set at zero...so does that mean that i am basically shooting to the right?
Just to confuse things a little (sorry ;) )It could mean you're shooting to the right, or it could mean you tend to shoot a lot of subjects that are predominantly light in color.

In simplest terms, I think of the histogram as a sort of guide to how much of the sensor I used to get the shot. I don't want a big gap to the right because that's where the sensor records the most information. Depending on the subject, the range covered by the histogram will vary. I paid for the whole sensor, so I want to record an image that uses as much of that sensor as I can. I know for certain that underexposing a shot is not using my sensor to the fullest, and I'm not going to get results that are as good as a properly, or even somewhat overexposed, shot.

[tzalman]

My histogram is almost always to the right when I look at the data from my pictures. And I always shoot with the "bar" set at zero...so does that mean that i am basically shooting to the right?

One important factor to keep in mind - exposing to the right refers to low contrast scenes. With a high contrast scene (what you apparently usually photograph) the data is already spread all across the histogram, so you can't move it to the right unless you are willing to sacrifice the highlights. And when faced with a scene whose contrast is greater than the camera can handle, you might decide to "shoot to the left" in order to save the highlights.

[superdiver]

OK, so here is a related (I think) question....

How do you correct for a histogram that is "short"?...

I on occasion will notice in PPing that my hitogram is very shot and wide...also the opposite is true on occasion...

If I see that while chimping, how do you correct it that so I get a more "bell curve" shaped histogram?

[stlscape]

breakdown - you might want to take a look at tutorial #8, by Boo, which covers ISO and slight overexposure to the right. I've found all her tutorials to be very helpful.

Linky: http://www.zenadsl5251.zen.co.uk/photos/tutorials.html

[elTwitcho]

OK, so here is a related (I think) question....

How do you correct for a histogram that is "short"?...

I on occasion will notice in PPing that my hitogram is very shot and wide...also the opposite is true on occasion...

If I see that while chimping, how do you correct it that so I get a more "bell curve" shaped histogram?

You should not aim for a bell curve, in fact you should not aim for any histogram shape at all except for one that isn't bunched up at either extreme (ie, blown highlights or burned shadows). Very few scenes have a little shadow and highlight and alot of midtones, that's a bell curve. If you're shooting a dark scene with a light element (such as a face and dark clothing) you would not only not get a bell curve, but you would not WANT a bell curve either.

[PhotosGuy]

Liza: OK, and I completly agree if you add one word. "What I'm thinking is that you shouldn't blow the important highlights completely by having the indicator all the way to the right side." As my link above shows, I try to keep a "normal" white, & let the abnormal highlights blow out in most instances. (Except when I don't.) ;)