Histogram, who uses it?

Here is another good article on this, and it talks about metering modes.

http://visual-vacations.com …e_metering_stra​tegies.htm

AAphotog wrote in post #14563238
So does metering mode change your histogram? Or if using the histogram correctly, you won't have to Meter at all?

The histogram is after the fact (except in live view where one is made in anticipation of the exposure). So its only a substitute for metering if you are taking a similar photo repeatedly. Since the histogram is after the fact it would only change with metering mode if metering modes give you different exposures.

So I'll ask... If your shooting something with the sun as a background(you don't really need the detail of the sun) the histogram showing clipping in the highlights is ok right? but that clip will be a short clip as opposed to a tall spike clipping correct?

Also, are people normally wanting all of the taller spikes on the histogram to be in the middle? Or does it change alot depending on what your shooting? ie you're shooting shomething dark and you actually want it to show up kind of dark, most of the taller data would be more towards the left


PS. excuse all of the questions, I'd just like to soak up as much as possible from you folks who are CLEARLY more experienced than I.

As much as we bash Ken Rockwell, he has some good histogram examples.
http://www.kenrockwell​.com/tech/histograms.h​tm

This is pretty good too: http://www.photoshopes​sentials.com/photo-editing/histogram/ (the 2nd page has a couple of examples)

TeamSpeed wrote in post #14563468
As much as we bash Ken Rockwell, he has some good histogram examples.
http://www.kenrockwell​.com/tech/histograms.h​tm

This is pretty good too: http://www.photoshopes​sentials.com/photo-editing/histogram/ (the 2nd page has a couple of examples)

Maybe this went over my head, but I like the way Ken starts off his histogram examples.........

"INTRODUCTION

The best way to evaluate exposure is to look at the picture, not a histogram."

AAphotog wrote in post #14563403
So I'll ask... If your shooting something with the sun as a background(you don't really need the detail of the sun) the histogram showing clipping in the highlights is ok right? but that clip will be a short clip as opposed to a tall spike clipping correct?

Also, are people normally wanting all of the taller spikes on the histogram to be in the middle? Or does it change alot depending on what your shooting? ie you're shooting shomething dark and you actually want it to show up kind of dark, most of the taller data would be more towards the left


PS. excuse all of the questions, I'd just like to soak up as much as possible from you folks who are CLEARLY more experienced than I.

The height of the histogram represents the percentage of the final photo that has a specific intensity. So a higher peak means more of the photo has that intensity. The sun itself is a quite small object, so even if it will always (unless used with strong ND filters) be clipped. But it represents quite few pixels in the final photo and a very short peak in the histogram. If the sun is behind clouds, then a quite large cloud can be light enough to clip, in which case you will get a much higher peak in the histogram. That is why it is also good to combine the use of a histogram with the use of flashing highlights when viewing the photo on the display.

If the cloud is flashing but your eyes sees lots of nice details in the cloud, then you obviously want to reduce the exposure so the camera can capture the cloud details. If it's just the sun itself that is flashing, then you just ignore it since you can't really do anything about it without special filters - and then only meaningful if you are photographing the venus transit or similar.

As I mentioned in a previous post - it makes a big difference if you shoot raw or jpeg.

If you shoot jpeg and shoot a dark scene you have to keep the histogram to the left if you want it to end up dark in the print.

If you shoot raw, you can slide the histogram to the right to make full use of the sensor (reducing noise and letting it see even further down into the dark) when exposing. You can then convert the photo to a 16-bit image in your image-editing program and adjust it to be as dark as you like. Then you can decide to adjust the curves to increase some of the contrast in the shadows to make some of the additional features the camera caught visible in the final print.

I said you are foolish,,,, so if your sensitive brain tells you to interpret that as being called a fool,,,,, that's your problem not mine... Some of you need to grow a pair

davidc502 wrote in post #14563546
Maybe this went over my head, but I like the way Ken starts off his histogram examples.........

"INTRODUCTION

The best way to evaluate exposure is to look at the picture, not a histogram."

But the camera LCD is not the best way to look at a picture....

pwm2 wrote in post #14563586
The height of the histogram represents the percentage of the final photo that has a specific intensity. So a higher peak means more of the photo has that intensity. The sun itself is a quite small object, so even if it will always (unless used with strong ND filters) be clipped. But it represents quite few pixels in the final photo and a very short peak in the histogram. If the sun is behind clouds, then a quite large cloud can be light enough to clip, in which case you will get a much higher peak in the histogram. That is why it is also good to combine the use of a histogram with the use of flashing highlights when viewing the photo on the display.

If the cloud is flashing but your eyes sees lots of nice details in the cloud, then you obviously want to reduce the exposure so the camera can capture the cloud details. If it's just the sun itself that is flashing, then you just ignore it since you can't really do anything about it without special filters - and then only meaningful if you are photographing the venus transit or similar.

As I mentioned in a previous post - it makes a big difference if you shoot raw or jpeg.

If you shoot jpeg and shoot a dark scene you have to keep the histogram to the left if you want it to end up dark in the print.

If you shoot raw, you can slide the histogram to the right to make full use of the sensor (reducing noise and letting it see even further down into the dark) when exposing. You can then convert the photo to a 16-bit image in your image-editing program and adjust it to be as dark as you like. Then you can decide to adjust the curves to increase some of the contrast in the shadows to make some of the additional features the camera caught visible in the final print.

Very nice description and mini-tutorial!

Here is a boring example of something with a large dynamic range (was waiting for the grad ceremony to start, so I was shooting everything while waiting), with most of the data to the left, and still with clipped highlights, but where I didn't mind them. The bulbs and their diffused glow on the surrounding covering would have blinked if I had it on. Big spike on the right side, all from the bulbs in the pic.

I thought I would throw this out there for a little bit of fun.

If you have a image URL, you can use this site to drop in that location and get the exif data, and if you click the text at the bottom of the image, you can get the histogram.

This will allow you to quickly try out different images here, on images.google.com, etc to see how the histograms look for different images without you having to do all of this at home with your equipment and software.

http://regex.info/exif​.cgi

You can install this add-on for firefox too.

https://addons.mozilla​.org …x/addon/histogr​am-viewer/

Threads like this crack me up

pwm2 wrote in post #14563586
The height of the histogram represents the percentage of the final photo that has a specific intensity. So a higher peak means more of the photo has that intensity. The sun itself is a quite small object, so even if it will always (unless used with strong ND filters) be clipped. But it represents quite few pixels in the final photo and a very short peak in the histogram. If the sun is behind clouds, then a quite large cloud can be light enough to clip, in which case you will get a much higher peak in the histogram. That is why it is also good to combine the use of a histogram with the use of flashing highlights when viewing the photo on the display.

If the cloud is flashing but your eyes sees lots of nice details in the cloud, then you obviously want to reduce the exposure so the camera can capture the cloud details. If it's just the sun itself that is flashing, then you just ignore it since you can't really do anything about it without special filters - and then only meaningful if you are photographing the venus transit or similar.

As I mentioned in a previous post - it makes a big difference if you shoot raw or jpeg.

If you shoot jpeg and shoot a dark scene you have to keep the histogram to the left if you want it to end up dark in the print.

If you shoot raw, you can slide the histogram to the right to make full use of the sensor (reducing noise and letting it see even further down into the dark) when exposing. You can then convert the photo to a 16-bit image in your image-editing program and adjust it to be as dark as you like. Then you can decide to adjust the curves to increase some of the contrast in the shadows to make some of the additional features the camera caught visible in the final print.

Thx for the detailed response

GregoryF wrote in post #14561295
I keep my screen set showing the histogram and just a small thumbnail of my photo. I never look at the photo, just the histogram to check and adjust exposures.

This ^^^

The only time I check the photo itself is to check for focus & sharpness.

"Blinkies" are ok for the overexposed but do nothing for the other exposure info.

Not until I started using the tools needed did I start getting what I wanted.

Mark II wrote in post #14564168
"Blinkies" are ok for the overexposed but do nothing for the other exposure info.

That's all they're intended for I have them on by default, because it's easy to miss a spike at the right edge of the histogram. If you want to maximize the recorded dynamic range, you need to have your highest "non-blown" values just to the left of the right edge of the histogram - but not at the edge - the blinks tell you the rest of what you need to know.

AJSJones wrote in post #14564291
That's all they're intended for I have them on by default, because it's easy to miss a spike at the right edge of the histogram. If you want to maximize the recorded dynamic range, you need to have your highest "non-blown" values just to the left of the right edge of the histogram - but not at the edge - the blinks tell you the rest of what you need to know.

Yes, provided that preserving your highlights is your primary goal.