better to overexpose or underexpose

Well its not like I said always underexpose. It was an over vs under thing and I said I always underexpose. Verses overexposing and losing the detail and sharpness in highlighted/blownout areas.

I guess its all pointless to debate tbh because we should always do what it takes to properly expose something.

I understand the ETTR theory but like someone said, that is technically not overexposing?

yeah I mean I always strive for dynamic range so that is my personal preference

I guess its all trivial but I was just curious as to actually technical studies and data which is better
Overexposing or underexposing by the same amount of stops

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #18337074
Well its not like I said always underexpose. It was an over vs under thing and I said I always underexpose. Verses overexposing and losing the detail and sharpness in highlighted/blownout areas.

I guess its all pointless to debate tbh because we should always do what it takes to properly expose something.

I understand the ETTR theory but like someone said, that is technically not overexposing?

I think it is a terminology thing. What do you mean when you say you over-expose? What do you use to determine you have over-exposed?

It feels like we are having a terminology debate, and not a debate on the root topic, IMO?

I mean overexposed to me means blowouts/clipping on the red (hightlight) side
Underexposed means you have some blue (shadows) clipping instead

is that not right? lmao

I mean I guess you can have an overexposed image without having blowouts but yeah

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #18337082
I mean overexposed to me means blowouts/clipping on the red (hightlight) side
Underexposed means you have some blue (shadows) clipping instead

is that not right? lmao

I mean I guess you can have an overexposed image without having blowouts but yeah

Good, if over exposure means blowing out your image to lose detail, then hardly ever is that a good thing to do. Setting your exposure up to just about that point of clipping does have advantages however. However exposing down into the shadows and pushing up later could result with with its own disadvantages, false electronic noise that now becomes part of the scene's "detail", or more accurately "diminishing the scene's real detail", almost like taking an old LP during a quiet section of the 1812 Overture and running the volume way up, so that all that popping starts to takes it toll on the music you hear.

Exposing for the most important part of the image is the best thing, and sometimes you will have shadows that have to be pushed up, and sometimes you will have blown areas, often there is nothing that can be done there. If you do any kind of BIF, you will see this. You either expose for the sky and push the bird's shadows up and deal with noise, or you expose for the bird, and the sky is completely clipped.

Here is a fun article.
https://photographylif​e.com …rexposure-in-photography/

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #18337068
well right and I always tell people you should up your ISO and properly expose. But this was a simple Overexposed vs Underexposed question.Which I don't get why that was even a question but yeah

But lest we mislead folks into a bad conclusion, let us also declare...
It is better to use lower ISO + properly expose, than to use higher ISO + properly expose

...because the more photons we can let fall onto the sensor (wlth a longer exposure), the higher the signal:noise ratio. Worse signal:noise is what account for loss of DR.

.
The proper exposure is that which looks best to your eye. . Anything more than that is over-exposed, and anything under that is under-exposed. . The final image is always the standard against which 'over' and 'under' must be compared.

I have found it much better to over-expose an image than to shoot it 'spot-on'. . Why? . When I shoot an image brighter than I want it to be, there is less noise grain, and there is deeper colour depth.

If you shoot the same thing 'spot on', and then shoot it a little brighter than that, you will notice that the file size for the brighter exposure is larger than that of the 'spot on' exposure. . This is because there has been more information recorded by the sensor and captured to the image file. More data means more detail and more depth to work with.

Hence, I usually shoot an image brighter than I want it to be, because when I do so, and then bring the exposure down in editing, the image is a better, cleaner image than it would be if I had shot it 'spot on' initially.

Underexposing is something that many rookies and novices seem to do, when shooting in low light situations and struggling with the exposure triangle.

* EDIT *
Of course, when I say that it is better to over-expose, I do not mean that highlights should be clipped. This should, of course, be obvious to any experienced shooters, and go without having to say it . . . . but I thought I'd say it anyway, just in case anyone tries to get nit-picky with me about what I wrote.
.

Proper metering (incident hand-held) solves conundrums and nets you spot on exposure.

In any case, to answer your question: with digital capture, once the highlights are blown they're gone –irrecoverable; all the RAW processing software will accomplish is to turn the pure white area into a grey mush; on the other end, detail hidden in shadows can be brought back, at the expense of some noise –just how much noise will depend on the ISO used, which is one more reason to shoot at base ISO or as close to it as possible.

In a nutshell, underexposing is better, as you can still recover some detail.

Wilt wrote in post #18337096
But lest we mislead folks into a bad conclusion, let us also declare...
It is better to use lower ISO + perperly expose, than to use higher ISO + properly expose

...because the more photons we can let fall onto the sensor (wlth a longer exposure), the higher the signal:noise ratio. Worse signal:noise is what account for loss of DR.

I am very sure higher ISOs reduce available DR though, when you consider equal exposure at each ISO level. This is why we have 2 camps of thought around ETTL vs ETTR (and not the ETTL flash term ).

http://photonstophotos​.net …on%20EOS%207D%2​0Mark%20II

Also with the 1D4, I show what happens at the higher ISO spectrums where exposure was constant across 3 different ISO levels. I would have to find my mini-review though to remember what ISO levels these were and whether they were in the expanded range or not. I don't remember, but that would make a difference.

If I'm going to screw up, I'd rather do it on the underexposure side: Why I love RAW - '53 Ford Sunliner

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1284715

And this: https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17835948

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18337225
I am very sure higher ISOs reduce available DR though, when you consider equal exposure at each ISO level. This is why we have 2 camps of thought around ETTL vs ETTR (and not the ETTL flash term ).

http://photonstophotos​.net …on%20EOS%207D%2​0Mark%20II

Also with the 1D4, I show what happens at the higher ISO spectrums where exposure was constant across 3 different ISO levels. I would have to find my mini-review though to remember what ISO levels these were and whether they were in the expanded range or not. I don't remember, but that would make a difference.

I will not argue against the fact DR is reduced as you raise ISO. That is indeed the observed relationship.
The causal agent is:

1. Fewer photons strike a sensor when shutter speed is higher (than when shutter speed is lowered to offset the drop in ISO)...and fewer photons generate less signal in each sensel.
   
2. Since the circuit noise is fixed and constant, higher amplification of signal and noise occur at higher ISO so the s/n is a lower ratio at high ISO.
   

• At 1/100 and ISO 100, we record (100000 * 1/100) photons, or 1000 photons (vs unit of noise).
  At amplification 1 (ISO 100) we have signal of 1000 units:1 unit of noise; s/n 1000:1
  
• At 1/1000 and ISO 1000, we record (100000* 1/1000 ) photons, or 100 photons (vs unit of noise).
  At amplification 10 (ISO 1000) we have signal of 100 units signal:1 unit of noise which has to be amplified to 1000 units:10 units of noise to get 'proper exposure'; s/n 100:1
  

ETTR is the optical analog of Dolby NR in audio tapes (remember them?), with the signal recorded artificially high so that subsequent reduction to the right level will also reduce tape hiss proportionally.

This is closer to what I remember from contributions from Daniel Browning and others on that topic.

http://www.photonstoph​otos.net …20Martinec/nois​e-p3a.html

ETTR is not 'overexposing', it is giving 'just a touch more exposure' so as to better allocate the usage of bits, so that more show detail can be extracted yet not lose an highlight detail. It is part of a somewhat broad definition of 'proper exposure'.

Of the real 'overexposure' vs. 'underexposure' which is better to do?, forget the theory
and look at a specific, practical example of what happens with each error (vs. 'proper' exposure.)

Just shot the following three shots (at 0EV, and -2EV and +2EV exposure).

• the 'underexposed one is boosted +2EV in post processing
  
• while the 'overexposed' one is reduced -2EV in post processing
  

1. I can run noise reduction (not yet any NR applied to shots) to decrease the noise seen in #2.
   
2. I cannot do anything to restore data lost in clipping my data (falling off the histogram in the eternal bit bucket)
   

On an unrelated note, now that you have had time with the 7d2, how do you like or dislike it over your previous bodies? Actually a bit related perhaps as I would believe you would like the bit additional latitude in pushing up darker exposures, without some or all of the banding characteristics that seemed to be on the 20d thru 50D.