Overexposing in camera and pulling back in post?

[kundalini]

I tend to shoot to the right and pull back in post...... which is why I prefer the Highlights display on my LCD. I can tell immediately if an area of importance in the frame is blown. I can't always read the histogram outside in bright light, but I can usually discern the blinkies.

 

[djacobox372]

Exposing to the right was a widely accepted technique with film, as you didn't have to worry about the highlights clamping on you. When digital SLR's became popular this fell out of favor because of the poor dynamic range at the high-end, in fact many people got in the habit of exposing to the left to avoid the ugly clamped highlights.

Today's digital SLR's have much better dynamic range and exposing to the right is becoming favorable again. Personally I just try to nail the exposure, as the dynamic range improvements have gone in both directions.

 

[Derrel]

Overexposing and pulling the exposure back in post-processing was the standard method for the Kodak 14n camera. It was "the" way to shoot that camera in RAW mode among the commercial and portrait shooters who adopted that camera. It was/is a good method.

I have done it with the Canon 5D as well. One of the issues about what KmH and Christie Photo were talking about was was actually constitutes "over-exposure"; for example, the blinkies and the histogram you see in the camera are derived from the JPEG image that resides inside the RAW file; unless you have what is called a "Uni-White Balance" or a "Near-Uni-White Balance" loaded into your camera (unlikely), the overexposure warning lights aka the blinkies, as showing ovrexposure on an image that has had some kind of a tone curve applied to it. Soooooo, if you have the camera set to a Picture Style or Custom Option like say "Direct Print", or "Vivid", or "Faithful", or "Portrait Mode 1 or 2" and so on, the blinkies will be applied based on how the RAW data is interpreted in THE JPEG IMAGE FILE, WITH a TONE CURVE applied.

A RAW capture with a Normal or Standard Tone Curve will look like a decent image when opened in Photoshop, or when viewed on the camera's LCD screen. The shadows will be set so they look darkish, there will be a large swath of midtone values that all look decent, and the highlights will be set more or less correctly. So, the "blinkies" and the histogram will tend to show that the sensor has reached saturation or full-well capacity at an exposure that is actually *less* than what the sensor could accept if the data were mapped out in a linear form.

So...like Thom Hogan has been saying about the new Nikon D7000: newbies shoot images with it, and say that the D7000 is overexposing; he notes that what the camera is doing is over-DEVELOPING the image data, and that if the user simply lowers the tone curve/saturation in the camera, then the camera's exposure system is almost perfect. So, in short, yes, there is a way of quote "over-exposing" and then pulling the exposure BACK as they say, in post processing, and it can yield very good results,if you know what you are doing,

 

[eric-holmes]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I tried this out today and let me say, it was more difficult than I thought. The pictures seemed to look washed out with little contrast. Not to mention the softer image from theslowed shutter speed. I couldn't seem to pull the image back in post and still make it look well.

 

[Overread36]

When processing the RAW try to boost the "blacks" slider up if you have a washed out look to the photo - the clarity tool is also a good one to use to help add bit more punch to photos. However remember what I said before, that expose to the right is an ideal concept, but not always fully possible. If you've not got enough light to let you have a fast shutter speed and expose to the right you have to make a choice - you can play with exposure, but softness is harder to fix and blur is almost impossible to fix (without a lot of work).

 

[RacePhoto]

Expose Right

What Big Mike says, the link he provided and read. I have my cameras set to 1/3rd over, all the time. If I want something different I adjust, but that's my "standard" Noise in the shadows is something that bugs me the most about digital. This reduces it. I'd rather have good blacks and shaded areas. If some white goes white, it doesn't ruin the image. Somewhere there must be a choice, otherwise it's just taking snapshots and fixing what's wrong later. Expose to the right works for my taste.

 

[Christie Photo]

When I first shot digital, it was on-the-job training. I'm remembering now something that was always part of my procedure. I began shooting in JPG back then, so this was even more important. I don't remember when (or why) I abandoned this step: After taking my initial reading and examining the histogram, I would turn the card over and shoot the white side. I wanted to be certain ALL the data, displayed as a narrow line, was at the extreme far right of the histogram, but not being clipped.

Not every scene we shoot has a complete range of tones from black to white. It only follows that in some scenarios the data will be to the right and in others to the left. It's all relative... to 18% gray.

 

[eric-holmes]

Why do you not have worry about highlights in film? Could you not "clip" the highlights on film?

 

[Christie Photo]

With negative film, it was "Expose for the highlights, print for the shadows."

With reversal film, it's much the same as digital.

So, yes! Complete overexposure of the highlights on slide film meant NO record... just completely clear film.

-Pete