PixelatedImage Blog

In a follow up to yesterday’s post about exposure and the histogram, I thought I’d highlight a couple things.

I had a question in the comments asking whether Nikon had a similar metering mode to centre-weighted average, they do. I just don’t know the name of it. But that’s the thing – it doesn’t matter. Pick the metering mode that seems to work best for your camera, but then forget about it – what matters is the histogram, not how you get there.  Now, obviously there are exceptions. There are times for precise metering. But this is the way I do it 90% of the time, if not more.

All this really assumes you’re shooting RAW and will be going into the digital darkroom to finesse your final image. If you are shooting JPG you need to be WAY more particular about your metering because the moment you hit the button the camera throws away all kinds of information and tweaking it later will reveal the weakness of the digital negative MUCH faster. I know there are some nutty folks out there still shooting JPG, but I don’t get it. For me and my image needs, I shoot RAW.

You also need to know that when the camera shows you a histogram it’s actually showing you a histogram for a little JPG preview it’s created just for this. It dumbs the image down and then shows you what it looks like. So if you clip the highlights a little you’re probably safe bringing them back in LR or Aperture. Assuming you’re shooting RAW. So don’t be a total freak about this. You have about a stop to play with in most circumstances before those blown highlights are really, really, blown highlights.

There are circumstances wherein the blown highlights need to stay in the image. If the sun is in the photograph, your histogram will have blown highlights. The sun IS a blown highlight. Same with any specular highlights in the image. A glint of light off of silverwear or the chrome fender of a car, for example. If you try to exposue so that the histogram has no lost information on the right the whole image will be so dark you’ll have defeated the purpose of this whole thing – because the mass of your information will now be in the leftmost half, which means less actual information and a poorer digital negative.

Glad this has helped so many of you. We’ve got a funeral tomorrow so I won’t be posting. See you – most likely – back here on Thursday. Could be Friday. Let’s see how Wednesday plays out.