Congratulations @jayberg
J has selected me to host the next challenge.
Do some of the camera settings intimidate you? Do you want to learn how to develop your photography skills and learn how to use your camera effectively without always going back to the “auto” function? These challenges are for you!
This week’s challenge is: Using the Histogram to check exposure
Explanation: Have you ever gone out on a sunny day and thought you had your exposures correct, but couldn't really see the preview images very well in the bright sunlight only to get home to find that your whites were blown out in places on some of the shots? Well, the histogram can help you correct the problem before it is too late. What you will be doing on this challenge is using the histogram to get the proper exposure. Once you have the proper exposure and take a photo with no blow outs, you will take 4 additional photos: -2 stop, -1 stop, +1 stop and +2 stop to see the difference. For the sake of the challenge, you will pick ONE of those shots to tag... it does not necessarily have to be the proper exposure... I'll explain below....
If you do not shoot in RAW, the correct exposure will likely make your subject too dark. So, for the sake of the challenge, if you don't do post processing, you can select the one that looks the best to you (even though it likely will have blown highlights if you shot outdoors with any bright light). In your description when you upload the shot, be sure to indicate if it is -2 stop, -1 stop, correct exposure, +1 stop or +2 stop.
You will see why shooting in RAW is better than shooting in JPG when you do this challenge. If you DO shoot in RAW, you can fix the underexposed areas in your RAW editor and/or Lightroom, etc. You'll also see why using the histogram is beneficial when doing true HDR photography.
Additional Tips: I don't know about Nikon, Sony, etc, but on Canons, while viewing the histogram, the blown out parts will blink on the preview image so you can see exactly where you've blown out your whites/highlights. If you don't know how to access the histogram, either consult your manual or google (make & model of camera and "histogram" and you should be able to figure out how to access it)
Experienced photographers who are knowledgeable in this particular setting are encouraged to offer “kind and constructive” suggestions on the posted entries. Those entering this challenge want to learn and improve.
This challenge starts today, Sept 8th and will last through 12:00pm Central Standard Time (17:00 Zulu time http://www.zulutime.net) on Sept 18th. All photos must be taken during these dates to be considered. Enter as many as you would like- the idea is to practice & learn. TAG YOUR PHOTO CSC-32 AND post your picture in this thread to receive feedback from other experienced photographers specific to this challenge.
Voting will take place Sept 19th (and remain open 24 hours) and the winner will be announced Sept. 20. The winner of the challenge will select an experienced photographer to host a new challenge. It is the winner’s option on who they want to host the next challenge; it may be someone they follow whose work they admire, or someone who is active offering suggestions on previous CSC challenges. The winner may also select an experienced photographer for the list of photographers who have agreed to host future challenges as another option. Here is the link to that list: http://365project.org/myhrhelper/365/2011-12-12
Expect to receive constructive suggests on how to improve your skills.
How to post your photo on this link:
1) Go to your page that has the photo you wish to post.
2) Copy the “share” code in the bottom right section of that page.
3) Return to this thread and paste the code under comments
I guess this is a good time to weigh in and point out, shooting raw, that the object is to get a "digital negative" where nothing is blown, and then on the "print" process, the work in the editor, to recover detail, usually in the deep shadows now if you are shooting in light conditions of 7+ EVs. A "correctly exposed" digital negative, with its default rendering, will most of the time in wide light conditions look quite unappealing, like Jeff describes above.
If you are shooting jpegs, or want to claim something like SOOC or don't have an editor, all is not completely lost. At least for Nikon cameras, perhaps others, but I don't know what the feature would be called, or even if is there. Nikon call it "Active D-Lighting." "D" I imagine must stand for "detail." It drops the highlights and raises the shadows and you can adjust it for various levels of correction - Extra high, High, Normal, Low or Off, and you can let the camera decide with "Auto."
Post shoot, if you have forgotten to set Active D-Lighting, the Retouch menu in the camera provides you with the "D-Lighting" feature that can take a shot already taken and "adjust" the shadows and the highlights. The problem with that, of course you realize, is that if you've blown anything, it will stay blown no matter what. And this is, actually, also true for the "Active" one as well it should be pointed out.
Personally, I find the D-Lighting features quite ham-fisted with only 4 fixed levels, and they adjust BOTH the shadows and the highlights simultaneously, often exactly what you don't want especially if you have "exposed for the highlights." Which most professionals do, since it is surprising how much detail can be hiding the apparent blacks. Not the other way around. Some authors even advise raw shooters to keep your camera permanently with a minus exposure compensation for this reason, but I find that little ham-fisted too. Blow the highlights into white by exposing for the shadows, however, you will usually find there is nothing in the whites to recover. Gone forever.
I find that even "auto" Active D-Lighting - at least in the Nikon D5100 and D7100 - does not really do a great job, and especially flattens out significantly "ordinary" shots that don't require heavy adjustments. Personally even when shooting jpegs, I resolutely keep it "off." Most good editors will allow the tonal adjustments and "shadow recovery" on jpegs, but not to such a great extent as raw, and watch out for those jpeg "artifacts" that creep in.
While taken last week and not eligible for the challenge, here's a shot that illustrates the raw technique of exposing for the highlights and recovering shadow detail.
Last, let me put a plug in for the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw that can do miraculous stuff in this space, even with jpegs. Way better than main line Photoshop operating on psd's. Also it is the engine that drives Lightroom.
for space reasons I was a jpeg shooter and later moved to raw after being able to afford hardrive storage space and I am truly a convert.
I had learned to rely on the histogram often and now that I shoot raw and use light-room for adjustments in terms of things like clarity, adjustment brush tweaks etc I feel I have so much more flexibility and a lot of times when I shoot I shoot in a way I know I can squeeze more details with more creative post process that I wish I had from the beginning of my photography
I like this challenge in the fact that it highlights that there is "proper exposure" but shows the reality that the art is in picking what is right for you...I often gravitate towards what would be considered under or over exposed its just nice not having to take a few varying exposures to work with when I can shoot with digital flexibility in post
This is something I've been avoiding until now as well. Hopefully, this challenge will make me set aside time to learn and properly use this helpful tool.
I remember Northy started a discussion about this recently and there were very helpful tips given by Aberkill and others in that. I'll try to find it and post the link here.
I'm sure hoping I find time to take this one on because it has been on my list of understanding and I've avoided RAW the whole time, but I know this is really my "next" step in photography. Will give it a good read and then see what I can do. Thanks for picking something I know will be so helpful.
i struggled with this... i ignore the histogram when shooting - if anything, i look at it to make sure i am getting the blinkies because i'm aiming for high contrast ;p plus, the histogram changes hugely in processing - i've found the smallest nudges to the clarity and tonality sliders can create a huge different in the histogram... and like i said, mostly i aim to get the picture to look how i want it to, and generally, in processing, i have a sense of what the histogram needs to look like (altho' i don't treat it as a be-all and end-all)...
anyway, an instructive exercise... anything that increases my feeling of control over the end product is a good thing in my books... tx for starting this challenge!
@northy I generally only use the histogram when I'm out in the sun and can't see the lcd screen well enough (an image in preview mode will look way too dark, but may actually be slightly overexposed in reality... its one of the things about the sun I hate). The histogram can be of enormous help in those situations. I can't tell you how many times I'd take a test shot in the past, preview it, think its too dark, take a 2nd shot, like what I see, then take all the rest of my shots with those settings only to get home and find out the first shot was perfect and the rest were ruined... all because the image looked too dark because of the way the sun alters how things appear on the lcd screen. Then I learned how to utilize the histogram and I don't ruin a whole run of shots anymore. :) And yes, you can correct a LOT in Lightroom, but you can never fix blown out pixels.
As I'm looking at your example above, I'm thinking about how nicely hdr processing would work on it, because your best reflection is +1 but the chess piece itself appears to have blown out pixels, so layering that shot with the -1 and -2 could turn out to be a really sweet hdr, as long as you didn't overcook it. ;)
I kinda like the moodiness of the dark version and don't really feel the need for the reflection... If I was going to include it, I'd probably try to add a lighting gradient before going for HDR - but that's just me...
Really want to thank you for setting this challenge... As I mentioned before, I don't really worry about perfect exposure most of the time because I am generally aiming for something that isn't perfect exposure... But it's so important for landscapes... Something I realized today as I was hiking a trail near Yellowknife... I think you may have saved me some hair-pulling editing!
@northy almost all of my photography is outdoors/landscapes... I have saved time in post process by learning to check the histogram and have also realized there isn't a need to go the hdr route so much when the histogram is used to my advantage
tagging people that have posted here.... I just realized I forgot to change the tag.... if anyone has tagged a photo for this challenge as csc-31, please change it to csc-32.
This first shot is underexposed by -.67. The sky is still blown but the trees are hiding most of that.
The second shot is underexposed by -1.33. That recovered the details of the cattail. Unfortunately the sky is still blown. This shot would either need hdr or better composition so no sky would be visible. I did use the raw file for processing.
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Thanks Jeff
If you are shooting jpegs, or want to claim something like SOOC or don't have an editor, all is not completely lost. At least for Nikon cameras, perhaps others, but I don't know what the feature would be called, or even if is there. Nikon call it "Active D-Lighting." "D" I imagine must stand for "detail." It drops the highlights and raises the shadows and you can adjust it for various levels of correction - Extra high, High, Normal, Low or Off, and you can let the camera decide with "Auto."
Post shoot, if you have forgotten to set Active D-Lighting, the Retouch menu in the camera provides you with the "D-Lighting" feature that can take a shot already taken and "adjust" the shadows and the highlights. The problem with that, of course you realize, is that if you've blown anything, it will stay blown no matter what. And this is, actually, also true for the "Active" one as well it should be pointed out.
Personally, I find the D-Lighting features quite ham-fisted with only 4 fixed levels, and they adjust BOTH the shadows and the highlights simultaneously, often exactly what you don't want especially if you have "exposed for the highlights." Which most professionals do, since it is surprising how much detail can be hiding the apparent blacks. Not the other way around. Some authors even advise raw shooters to keep your camera permanently with a minus exposure compensation for this reason, but I find that little ham-fisted too. Blow the highlights into white by exposing for the shadows, however, you will usually find there is nothing in the whites to recover. Gone forever.
I find that even "auto" Active D-Lighting - at least in the Nikon D5100 and D7100 - does not really do a great job, and especially flattens out significantly "ordinary" shots that don't require heavy adjustments. Personally even when shooting jpegs, I resolutely keep it "off." Most good editors will allow the tonal adjustments and "shadow recovery" on jpegs, but not to such a great extent as raw, and watch out for those jpeg "artifacts" that creep in.
While taken last week and not eligible for the challenge, here's a shot that illustrates the raw technique of exposing for the highlights and recovering shadow detail.
Last, let me put a plug in for the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw that can do miraculous stuff in this space, even with jpegs. Way better than main line Photoshop operating on psd's. Also it is the engine that drives Lightroom.
I had learned to rely on the histogram often and now that I shoot raw and use light-room for adjustments in terms of things like clarity, adjustment brush tweaks etc I feel I have so much more flexibility and a lot of times when I shoot I shoot in a way I know I can squeeze more details with more creative post process that I wish I had from the beginning of my photography
I like this challenge in the fact that it highlights that there is "proper exposure" but shows the reality that the art is in picking what is right for you...I often gravitate towards what would be considered under or over exposed its just nice not having to take a few varying exposures to work with when I can shoot with digital flexibility in post
I remember Northy started a discussion about this recently and there were very helpful tips given by Aberkill and others in that. I'll try to find it and post the link here.
anyway, an instructive exercise... anything that increases my feeling of control over the end product is a good thing in my books... tx for starting this challenge!
As I'm looking at your example above, I'm thinking about how nicely hdr processing would work on it, because your best reflection is +1 but the chess piece itself appears to have blown out pixels, so layering that shot with the -1 and -2 could turn out to be a really sweet hdr, as long as you didn't overcook it. ;)
Really want to thank you for setting this challenge... As I mentioned before, I don't really worry about perfect exposure most of the time because I am generally aiming for something that isn't perfect exposure... But it's so important for landscapes... Something I realized today as I was hiking a trail near Yellowknife... I think you may have saved me some hair-pulling editing!
tagging people that have posted here.... I just realized I forgot to change the tag.... if anyone has tagged a photo for this challenge as csc-31, please change it to csc-32.
sorry for the confusion/inconvenience!
The second shot is underexposed by -1.33. That recovered the details of the cattail. Unfortunately the sky is still blown. This shot would either need hdr or better composition so no sky would be visible. I did use the raw file for processing.