poll: Any RAW shooters shoot to the left for shutter speed?

I shoot RAW and edit using Camera RAW in Bridge. Its sooo quick and I'd never go back to shooting Jpeg.

RAW, and expose to the right of the histogram, certainly not to the left.

Generally, I overexpose a hair 1/3 to 2/3.
The technique your friend is discussing is possible and viable. You can only push it so far though.

iamaelephant wrote in post #5561938
RAW, and expose to the right of the histogram, certainly not to the left.

his theory was that its easier to add exposure to raw rather than to try to darken an overexposed photos

The advice of the experts is always to shoot to the right. Shooting to the left (ie negative exposure) is not a good idea because of the likelihood of underexposed shadows - therefore, noise. And I wouldn't agree that it's easier to try and darken an overexposed image. The golden rule, however, is to get the exposure right in the first place!

Roy Mathers wrote in post #5562187
The advice of the experts is always to shoot to the right. Shooting to the left (ie negative exposure) is not a good idea because of the likelihood of underexposed shadows - therefore, noise. And I wouldn't agree that it's easier to try and darken an overexposed image. The golden rule, however, is to get the exposure right in the first place!

I agree 100% Roy

Thank you Bill

I clicked the second option ( RAW no special settings) which is pertly true.
I shoot RAW, but I do often take into account the situation and alter exposure accordingly, however rarely if ever do I do the "shutter speed trick"

I do however often do the exact opposite and expose to the right,.

Roy Mathers wrote in post #5562187
The advice of the experts is always to shoot to the right. Shooting to the left (ie negative exposure) is not a good idea because of the likelihood of underexposed shadows - therefore, noise. And I wouldn't agree that it's easier to try and darken an overexposed image. The golden rule, however, is to get the exposure right in the first place!

Though I to expose to the right most of the time, this is not a useful technique when the results will offer a shutter speed so slow that the subject is blurred.

ie: I agree with you less than < 100%

If the OP was being offered this trick as a form of default to use always, he was clearly being misled. It's a technique or tool like any other that has it;'s time or place. IMHO even as someone who shoots a LOT in a dark theatre moving subjects, the technique has limited appeal,.
but still it should be considered as a reasonable option in certain circumstance, and no more "written off" than used as "default"

No matter how close you shoot to the right (even with some minor clipping), there are situations where the dynamic range (latitude) exceeds that of the sensor (film), and there will be shadows that are underexposed and will have some noise.

The reason for shooting to the right (ETTR) is well explained in these links:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial​s/expose-right.shtml

http://www.digitalphot​opro.com/tech/exposing​-for-raw.html

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #5562464
ie: I agree with you less than < 100%

You're probably right, but perhaps just a little pedantic. I did make me laugh though !

cheers

I use raw for everything except sports and moon shots. I find raw to be more forgiving if I mess something up, and also has more latitude for producing creative images in post processing. I find RAW requires very little extra post processing with my work flow, compared to jpeg so I don't see any disadvantage in using it for most types of photography.

For sports and lunar shots I need high FPS and large burst sizes, the reasoning for sports is probably fairly obvious, but for lunar shots it is so I can take multiple exposures and stack them in post to overcome atmospheric distortion and produce much sharper images with more detail than could be obtained with a single frame.

Bill Roberts wrote in post #5562521
You're probably right, but perhaps just a little pedantic. I did make me laugh though !

cheers

No - if CDS were being pedantic, he would have realised that < means 'less than' - so he was guilty of tautology!

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #5562464
Though I to expose to the right most of the time, this is not a useful technique when the results will offer a shutter speed so slow that the subject is blurred.

ie: I agree with you less than < 100%

If the OP was being offered this trick as a form of default to use always, he was clearly being misled. It's a technique or tool like any other that has it;'s time or place. IMHO even as someone who shoots a LOT in a dark theatre moving subjects, the technique has limited appeal,.
but still it should be considered as a reasonable option in certain circumstance, and no more "written off" than used as "default"

the main reasoning is shooting birds under low light. even useing iso 1600 early in the am i am still at 60 shutter speed and my pics come out blurry. it sound like left exp. might be usefull early then adjust to normal ap. as light permits. thats just what im getting out of all this. but my other problem would be as light gets better am i better off going iso 800 then 400 to get better pq?
and if i do lower my iso. i would think that i should use negative exp. to get faster shutter speeds. am i right on this?

They will come out 'blurry' if you try to capture a bird in flight at 1/60. But ISO1600 is not the answer, as it will inevitably be a little noisy. Why not use a much wider aperture? (although you didn't state what aperture you were using with 1/60).