Terrible advice?

[orfeo]

It's always better to underexpose a little bit, because you camera will expose to the burning point, at which when the highlight are blown, you are screwed as there are no information in those burnt zones. Underexposing is safe and you can then work in RAW. Pretty simple.

If you had shot film, you would understand that chemical film has way more information in the highlights, and way less info in the shadows. In digital, it's the contrary. Also you get reduced dynamic range with digital, so undersexpose, push the shadows and darken the highlights.

 

[Clint]

ETTR was/is not a myth - it is pretty much built into the digital processing so if you try it today, you won't get the same large effect that used to be possible. OTH - the benefits of underexposing are taught in some of the best photography schools (RIT) today - however that is tempered with one way to expose does not fit all situations. Individual preferences come into play with both of these techniques.

What the blogger might have addressed instead - is to set your black point and white point in every photo. You deepen the dark tones, but not to dark, and brighten the brightest areas, but not to point of blowing them out - increasing contrast and apparent sharpness.

 

[lightmonkey]

there is no right answer. ettr proponents claim it provides cleaner details in shadows. except, when shutter-speed-limited, ettr requires a higher (=noisier) iso anyway.

and there is the risk of clipping if not done judiciously.

i do both, depending on the scene and the target that i want to bias for. more of the time, i underexpose. cameras are good now - im not afraid of noise.



but i think the biggest take away is that thephobotoger.com whatever website is complete rubbish and i suggest youre better off not reading it

 

[lightmonkey]

also, while stretching the histogram (dark --> darkest; light --> lightest) is generally a good practice, it is a suggestion and by no means a rule.

[just like that dreaded "thirds" rule -- which i propose henceforth be called the "suggestion of thirds"]

sometimes i push up (brighten) the dark areas as a stylistic choice

 

[T N Args]

I do think this part of the article is poorly written, because using exposure settings to 'dial in' more sharpness by making the photo contain more black levels is silly. Maybe (maybe) you can use this technique to advantage if your goal is to get the OOC image to have more apparent sharpness with no post processing.

But as general exposure advice for discerning photographers it is poor advice. Sensors are still linear devices last time I looked, so half of all their available tonal levels are in the top one stop of exposure. That is why ETTR is important and good advice, not particularly for the noise advantage.

The other important point, IMHO, is that ETTR is good advice for capture, not for viewing. For capture, it gives you the most information to work with -- although remember to deliberately blow the specular highlights (otherwise your detailed image sections will be pushed too low in the exposure scale). But for the purpose of viewing, you have a number of aesthetic decisions to make on an image by image basis, and the look of the original ETTR image is no guide at all as to how the image should look for viewing.

cheers

 

[agentlossing]

I got nothing very useful out of that article, except for the underlying idea: More contrast equals 'sharper' (really a misnomer since contrast it's what it's all about anyway, sharpness is just an approximation, a figure of speech). The article should have been titled something like "how to improve contrast in your images" and avoided talk of exposure at all, since what they're talking about is mostly done in post.

•••GX1+LVF-2+Olympus 17mm f/2.8, GF3; Konica FS-1, C35v; various lenses•••

 

[John M Flores]

Firstly, I only take photography advice from people whose photos I like. Secondly, I've heard many film photographers describe the primary difference between film and digital is the harshness of digital highlights. I see it all the time, not just blown highlights, but very little detail and nuance in the upper register of the histogram. So, personally, I'm very keen on controlling what's happening up there, so ETTR, while theoretically plausible, just doesn't work for me.

Your mileage will vary. Most definitely.

 

[Deleted member 20897]

Whenever someone asks me about this, I tell them 2 things.

1-if you need the most amount of latitude in your files, shoot RAW.
2-shoot the exposure and set the camera to the settings that will give you the most dynamic range. Then process the images in post to the flavor you like.

My files SOOC are generally flat as hell. I can then use Lightroom to get the files how I want them to be viewed.

That is just the way I do it. I'm not going to say that a way that anyone else does it is wrong, it is just the way they do it.

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