over exposing needed?

[Qurlyjoe]

I was advised (by a pro I respect) to deliberately over-expose color print film a bit by setting the ISO on the camera to about 2/3 of the actual film speed. The purpose is to ensure that the film got a little more light than maybe necessary because it's easier to compensate for that in the darkroom than not enough light. For instance, when shooting ISO 100 film, set the camera to about 80, or whatever it will allow that's close to that. I did this for years, and it works well for what I do (almost exclusively wildlife, nature, landscapes.)

My question is, does anyone think this is necessary, or advisable, or not, with digital? The only way I can even think of doing it (with a 10D) is with exposure compensation, and I'm just not sure it's even the same thing, to be honest.

Any thoughts, folks?

[CyberDyneSystems]

With Digital it is a bit more touchy.. if you overexpose you run the risk of "blowing out" the highlights.. that is turning bright areas into pure white. Once a highlight is "blown out" it is unrecoverable.. no information is present other than "white".

Use your hystogram and "highlight" alert (the blinking white areas) of your LCD to check for blown highlights..

On the other hand.. there is this;

http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/28_exposeright.htm

Thus.. the fine line.

[timmyquest]

I cant tell you how many shots i've ditched because of the noise created by bumping the histo to the right.

When they are slightly over exposed though this is typically not an issue. I am still a firm believer that if you nail it in the camera then you will be the most happy. However, i usually shoot 1/3-2/3s over just to make sure ;-)

[Qurlyjoe]

thanks for the link, CDS. What you both say makes sense to me, and after reading the Cavanaugh article, I think I actually understand why. :)

But I'm afraid I'm going to blow another afternoon here at work going through all the links on the right side of his pages. :roll:

[CyberDyneSystems]

Yes,. Roger's site is definately a bookmark site!

He's my main man when it comes to referring people to this type of knowledge :)

[ohenry]

Just a comment on "shoot to the right". I believe that shooting to the right is a good thing when shooting RAW then dialing back on the exposure. Overexposed shots are just that -- overexposed. When shooting jpg format, I think one should strive to get the exposure right in the camera (just my thoughts). When shooting slides, I used to intentionally underexpose 1/3 stop to 1/2 stop depending on which slide film I was using. With film, + 1/3 seemed to help. With digital RAW, I try to shoot to the right then when I process the RAW file, dial back the exposure in C1.