Exposing to the right - brilliant or bullock?

[Compaq]

I base this thread on this

For those that won't bother to read a rather long article, here's the the conclusions: (Chromasoft, 2009)

1. "There is no advantage to image quality from ETTR that can't be duplicated by selecting a lower ISO, if a lower ISO setting is available. In some situations, such as where there is in-camera noise reduction, ETTR actually increases noise. That's what the practical tests show, and the theory of the case confirms the practical results to be correct.
2. The only situation where there is an advantage to ETTR is if you're already at the lowest ISO setting your camera, and you use ETTR to synthesize a lower ISO. However, given the noise performance of most modern cameras, that advantage is often very small. The test I did here - a small sensor high pixel count camera - is the best possible scenario for seeing an improvement. Using a modern DSLR, the improvement would be marginal at best.
3. Any kind of ETTR brings significant disadvantages in the shape of color and tone curve shifts that will have to be repaired in post processing. While these shifts are small, they are easily the equivalent in effect of changing profiles. So, in effect, ETTR negates the advantages that modern raw developers such as Lightroom bring with them."

For those that do read the article, has the author based his overexposure on by increasing the ISO? When I think about how I would ETTR, I'd prefer a slower shutter speed or a smaller aperture, but I could allow that (with regard to motion blur and DOP). When shooting landscapes, shooting at f/8 or f/5.6 on a crop camera isn't much of a difference - given you're using a wide angle lens, ofc.

Any thoughts? Is exposing to the right really that effective? Not just theoretically, but in practice as well.

 

[tirediron]

Personally I expose for correctness, whether technical, or the result that I'm after. I see no reason to induce additional post-processing work by deliberately setting my exposure incorrectly.

 

[Big Mike]

I do believe that there is something to the 'Expose to the Right' theory....but 'proper' exposure is still the best way to go.

They way I look at it, exposing slightly above is better than slightly (or more) below. When it comes time to edit the images, I may feel that I want it to be darker or lighter than I shot it. Or maybe I just want to try something radical with the editing. I think that having a higher signal to noise ratio (exposing to the right) can be a benefit in that case. Sure, it may not end up as good as if it has been exposed (not 'properly, but to how it ends up), but you don't always know how you'll want it to end up.

These days, for something like landscapes, where I do care about things like noise and careful editing etc....I tend to bracket my shots anyway. Part of that is so that I can pick the best one as a starting point for editing...and part of it is so that I have the option to go HDR if I want.

 

[analog.universe]

The main reason that I like to expose to the right is for flexibility. The more data I've captured, the more options I have when it comes time to do post. "you don't always know how you'll want it to end up" ^^^ pretty much sums it up. If you expose "properly" then you've got your proper shot and your done. If you expose to the right, you have any number of shots, and you can decide later.

 

[bentcountershaft]

I use it when I'm shooting low light/high ISO and find it worthwhile. I wouldn't say it's an earth shattering, game changing ultra fantabulastic technique, but it does help.

 

[The_Traveler]

It also depends on the shooting situation. In high dynamic range situations, I always expose to the right (conceptually by using ec) because I'm not seeing the lovely tone curves that we can see in better light situations and I often need to get the shadows.

 

[analog.universe]

For sure, as long as you don't blow out the top end, it's much easier to bring the highlights down than it is to pull the shadows up. If only someone invented an analog optical tone curve compressor, so you could crunch the top a little before you went to digital... like you do when recording audio. That would be a wonderful device for photography.

afterthought: please no-one say "film", you know what I mean : )

 

[The_Traveler]

In MD, lots of the places I shoot at mid-day, the sky is a damn bright mirror and the light just bounces off of everything. I expose for the people and let the sky go where it will.

 

[Overread36]

For reference here is one of the main Expose to the Right articles slipping around the net (I forget though who started the whole theory)
Digital Exposure Techniques

 

[Big Mike]

I always link to the article on The Luminous Landscape.
Expose Right

In that article, Micheal says that he only figured this out after talking to Thomas Knoll...the original author of Photoshop & Camera RAW.
I'd guess that both of those guys know their stuff.

Of course, a lot has changed since that conversation took place and since that article was written.

 

[bazooka]

It seems to me that he has confirmed that ETTR by +1 gets you a reduction in noise by one stop. I have no idea why anyone would ETTR if they're not at the lowest ISO... I'm not sure who he sees doing this. Why would you increase noise so you can reduce noise? His explanation for the color or tone change seems incredibly insignificant compared to the benefit of noise reduction. I think his article confirms to me that ETTR is the way to go....

 

[shmne]

I always link to the article on The Luminous Landscape.
Expose Right

In that article, Micheal says that he only figured this out after talking to Thomas Knoll...the original author of Photoshop & Camera RAW.
I'd guess that both of those guys know their stuff.

Of course, a lot has changed since that conversation took place and since that article was written.

What this article talks about is what I was taught in school, it still holds true.

 

[Compaq]

But is it worth doing if you're overexposing by going up one stop with the sensitivity? Adding noise in order to get more detail? Sounds counter-intuitive, but I suppose I'll have to try it for myself.

 

[Mike_E]

Noise usually comes from underexposure.

 

[The_Traveler]

But is it worth doing if you're overexposing by going up one stop with the sensitivity? Adding noise in order to get more detail? Sounds counter-intuitive, but I suppose I'll have to try it for myself.

There seems to be a monumental disconnect in my thinking.
As I see it:
Exposing to the right is not increasing the iso. Increasing the ISO means that at the 'proper' exposure, less light will be hitting the sensor (increased iso means less light is needed)

Let's assume that we are using a totally automatic exposure setting. We are at ISO 400 and the aperture is f5.6 and the shutter speed is 1/400 and the amount of light reaching the sensor is X
If we increase the ISO to 800, the camera will respond by changing the aperture to f8 and the amount of light falling on the more sensitive shutter will be .5 x

If however, we don't want the average exposure, we want more light to illuminate the shadow areas - moving the entire histogram to the right - thus we use the ec to open the f stop to f4.

We are not effectively increasing or decreasing the iso; what we are doing is arguing with the cameras definition of what is correct at that iso.

Please tell me where I am off.