Landscape Photography and Exposing to the Right
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- Do you use the technique of exposing to the right when taking landscape photos? I’ve used the exposing to the right technique for at least 15 year in my landscape photography but now I’ve changed my approach.
In this video, I explain what I’ve found that makes me question the need to expose images to the right. I’ve even found it damaging my landscape photography. From my testing, I’ve decided to change my approach and drop this technique. You’ll see why when I demonstrate some adjustments using one of my RAW files.
Will you continue exposing to the right? Have you tested your camera? Let me know in the comments below. I’m interested to hear your experience.
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Robin, as far as I am aware exposing to the right has always meant the max possible exposure whilst NOT clipping the highlights (specular highlights excluded).
That was always my take on ETTR too...it's the I've always worked.
Yes that's correct but you can't rely on the histogram in most camersas. What they display is the histogram of a JPEG type conversion. They don't represent all the data in the RAW file. But it's not just about clipping which I do try to avoid. When I overexpose the image and then darken it down in post processing the colour and the spread of tones generally doesn't look as good as when I recover the shadows.
@@RobinWhalley Interesting that the spread of tones and colour don't look as good. I shoot m43 and sometimes skies which are not blown out do not recover their colour as well as I would expect. Time to do some testing re shadow recovery v ETTR.
@@johna5624 I understand exactly what you are saying. I call this tonal compression because you seem to have too much information compressed into too small a tonal range. You then need to spread it out again in post processing but it's very difficult to do this and have it look natural.
@@RobinWhalley I quite often find that I can clip the highlights to a small degree on the JPEG preview histogram and when I get it back into software there is no clipping apparent. It would be great if they matched but knowing this means you are aware of how far you can push your exposure while out in the field and still retain data to work with.
I have also experienced what you describe and find that recovery of shadows is easier. ETTR has its merits, but is not the be-all. Thanks for being brave enough to challenge the sacred ETTR “rule.” 😉🙏
Thanks you.
I also love to expose to the right, so we can brighten the shadow areas, but keeping the highlights to not clipping at the same time, which bring us to sharper and clean images than to shoot very underexposed images then try to brighten up those in post and ended up with more noise. If you have and bring a tripod, is essential to use exposure bracketing technique because the HDR will looks more natural, expand the dynamic range even better than a single exposure.
Very interesting, and each person will have his or her own view on this, so I don't think there's a right or wrong conclusion. I agree that technology has moved on to the point where shadow detail is less of an issue than it used to be - most cameras today do a good job, even most ISO variant models. That said - the way sensors capture data across the tonal range hasn't changed to my knowledge - so more data is still gathered at the brighter end than at the darker end. So, for me, I still tend to shoot a bit over and drag the exposure back in post. I do think I get better shadows this way, and it's not too onerous a job as long as I watch my highlights very carefully when I'm in the field. That said - I wouldn't argue with anybody who took your approach and just trusted their camera and software to pull up the shadows. I still do this sometimes (normally when I've messed up in the field!) and I don't recall having any images that I've had to bin. I think it might depend on what you're going to do with the image though - a very large print might well show the benefit of the expose to the right technique.
Thanks. It probably also depends to some degree on the image. I was out the other night and was accepting the camera exposure rather than exposing to the right. The images look better than I was expecting after some shadow recovery. I didn't need to work as hard in post processing and the scene really suited the technique. I think as photographers we have to remain open to experimenting.
I picked up on this after watching some blogging about street photography. The need for quick response meant the tog would pre set exposure for the sky and rely on being able to recover detail in post. I started using it for landscapes as i didn't have a great set of grad nd's. You are bang on about lots of literature still harping on about ettr. Cheers for the vids.
Thanks. I think we photographers just need to keep an open mind and be willing to investigate and experiment. I know that Ansel Adams loved new technology and developments in photography. Everyone knows him for his black and white shots but if he was still alive today I think he would be doing photography with his phone.
I came to the same conclusion when testing Capture One Pro earlier this year. Paul Reiffer who is a Capture One Ambassador will always take the exposure slider to the limit both ways just to see how much information is actually in the file. It’s a good technique and the results are often surprising!
Good to hear
It is because Fujifilm X series cameras have an ISO invariant sensor. X trans sensors are mostly ISO invariant. It is possible to shoot at base ISO and under expose the shot according to the histogram. In post increase the exposure by the amount of stops that the image has been under exposed and there will be no noise penalty. In effect, if you are using the DR settings on the Fujifilm cameras this is what it does to protect the highlights on a Jpeg. The good thing is that it affects the RAW file too. DR200 under exposes by 1 stop, DR400 under exposes by 2 stops. The camera jpeg engine then pulls the shadows up by the corespondinng amounts to produce well exposed Jpegs. Because it also affects the Raw file the highlights have been saved. Software such as Capture One and Lightroom ( and also the under rated Silkypix software supplied with the camera ) pulls the shadows up automatically because of a Flag in the metadata. Some basic Raw editing software doesnt see the flag and then displays the file exactly as exposed with leaving the user to work on the shadows to taste. Hope this helps. Cheers Ian.
Thanks - that is very informative. And yes, SilkyPix is generally underrated, but I found it too slow on X-Trans 4 (X-T30) and had to switch to Capture One.
Good explanation. Thanks.
People’s mileage will vary a lot on this so as you say it is important to experiment. Cameras that use ISO invariant Sony sensors will be much more forgiving of boosting underexposed shadows than will ISO variant sensors such as on many Canons. Push up the shadows on them and you see terrible noise, banding and purple color casts. But it varies with the camera and degree of underexposure. Lab tests for dynamic range reveal this.
Thanks. I have seen poor results on my old Canon files with this and also older Sony. The Nikon and newer Sony RAW files appear nice and clean. I suspect this is for the reason you mention.
Hi Robin, Nice video and advice, I have always under exposed even with my Nikon cameras, very good advice
Thank you. Good to know that I'm not on my own with this one.
I still expose to the right and what you say makes sense. I have not noticed it I suspect as landscape is still bracket and merge images. Another thing I have always done since the early DSLR. I will experiment as you have. Thank you.
Thank you.
I bracket a lot so I tend to not concern myself over exposure latitude these days. For event work where bracketing isn't an option I expose slightly under. It's easier to fix shadow noise ( if there is any ) than fix blown highlights ( which to be honest are unfixable anyway lol ). I figure pretty much all my cameras these days have a maximum 1.5 stops highlight recovery and 3 stops shadow recovery, a 2:1 ratio. I call it my 2:1 exposure method and it seems to work really well 😊
I like your 2:1 ratio. That seems to match what I'm seeing.
Hi Robin. Good video. I may be missing something, but it seems to me that the "correctly exposed" image had severely blown highlights, as is often the case when the image is predominately dark and the metering is averaging out the exposure. It's a photographer's judgement call to dial the exposure back, in recognition of this, a lot easier when you have a live histogram to refer to and requiring another bite at the cherry in cameras where you only have a histogram after taking the shot. Looking at your C1 histogram, the likely blown highlights are evident, but you didn't have that at the time. Bracketing to allow for this possibility saved the shot.
No, you aren't missing something. I call it correctly exposed because the camera came up with that exposure. And yes, bracketing did save the day. The reason I shaed this image example was that it showed how good the shadow recovery is now.
I'm willing to bet that the new AI de-noising tech like DxO's Deep Prime makes shadow noise far less of an issue than ever, although I've always slightly under-exposed digital images because I really dislike blown out highlights.
Yes, DeepPRIME does seem to work well but then the Fuji has very good noise handling in the shadows anyway. It really comes down to the type of sensor and where the dynamic rnage is. The Fuji and a lot cameras have it in the shadows. Micro 43 (as I demonstrate in this video ua-cam.com/video/VoyKeeqntH0/v-deo.html) is poor with shadow recovery but great with highlights.
Being relatively new to photography I have certainly been swayed by ETTR. Thank you for this. I use micro four thirds so will some testing.
Great to hear! I'm not saying ETTR doesn't work but it does seem to depend on the equipment.
Interesting. Definitely some experimentation is required!
I think so too!
IMHO ETTR works better if the scene is not high contrasting. Like woodlands without the sky etc.. Your opinion please
Whatever approach you use you still need to keep in mind the limits of the camera. With my M43 systems it seems easier to recover highlights while with the Fuji it's easier to recover shadows. This makes the M43 better suited to exposing to the right than the Fuji system in my opinion. But with either approach you can't exceed the camera limits. When I'm shooting landscapes, I still like to use filters to balance the exposure of the sky and ground irrespective of the camera. With woodland I don't use filters because I don't need to. It's really about understanding your system, so you know how it's likely to perform in different conditions and then you can decide how best to expose it. I also try to take into account the work that I'm likely to want to do in post processing.
Phew! I am retired but new to digital photography and have read about ETTR and have tried to set up my camera to expose this way. I use an Olympus EM1 Mark II, the software I use is Affinity. When I take a photo, I look at the histogram and try to expose to the right, when I open the raw file in Affinity, I always have to adjust the levels from the right to the left, it's still underexposed! Do you recommend any settings for the camera? Even though the images are slightly underexposed, I'm not aware of any noise when using a low ISO.
It's most likely not your camera but a setting in Affinity Photo. This short video I published will explain as well as how to fix it. ua-cam.com/video/YoBm9Fdcx5E/v-deo.html
@@RobinWhalley Thank you Robin, such a lot to learn! I enjoy your videos and learn a great deal from them.
So the first image you edited was exposed correctly to the right?
No, none of the images I edited in the video used exposing to the right. The first image that I showed had the camera set to +/-0 so is the default exposure. I use it to show how you can compress the highligh tones even when not exposing to the right. Whilst it was possible to recover the highligh areas the tones were still compressed into a narrow tonal range which caused the sky to appear quite ugly.
As sensor technology has been getting better, im reading that other photographers are also deciding not to use grad filters as well. Whats your take on this?
I still love shooting with grads but I can understand this if you are confident you can capture the entire dynamic range in a single shot. I also know a lot of photographers who bracket so they can use exposure blending rather process a single RAW file and they produce some amazing photography. I think both ways of working are fine. I just default to using grads a lot of the time because I cut my photographic teeth shooting slide film (and still do from time to time).
Hi Robin,
I am not sure if I have understood your way of exposing properly. I guess you still expose to the right but not so much that you can’t recover the highlights, don’t you?.
Another question / doubt I have with bracketing is, how do you expose the main bracket?. I mean, you make a first photo and from that, the camera makes 2 or more shots under and over that main exposure. How do you make this reference photo?. Do you set the controls on the ---o--- exactly?. Sometimes, when I bracket, the results in the highlights or the shadow areas are not satisfactory.
Have you got any video on this topic?
Regards
I still try to avoid clipping where in the past I was trying to avoid clipping whilst lightening the shadows as much as possible. If found this caused the brighter areas of the image to become compressed into quite a small tonal range and it was difficult to separate them in post processing at times. This s what I was trying to illustrate with the sky in the "correctly exposed" image in the video. It seems that for some cameras it's easier to open up the shadows in post processing. In the past I would try to avoid having a lot of shadows in the Raw file and instead add these back in the post processing which I found hard to do in a natural looking way. I do also bracket from time to time when I think the dynamic range of the scene is too much. At least by bracketing I have the option of exposure blending later. When exposure bracketing I tend to use two stops over and two stops under the base exposure. For the base exposure I tend to use one where I like the look of the histogram rather than +/-0 on the compensatin dial.
Interesting video but I am still somewhat confused. I always thought that for every stop you under expose you lose half the digital information.
Alan Thompson Not any longer - seeing is believing! - at least from a practical point of view. After all, the camera never lies ..... The modern vastly increased dynamic range lets us get down into the shadows and up to the highlights to a point where the display media imposes the limits. Probably for single exposures now simply expose 'correctly' - that will give you the best range if not exposure stacking. BobUK.
If you take two images one taken ETTR and one under exposed you will find the ETTR image has a larger file size, surely this is what we need to do to capture the most information.
The point that I was trying to make in the video isn't a technical one although this is a technical subject. I have two simple questions:
1. Which technique is easisest to process?
2. Which produces the best looking image?
For me I'm now finding I get better results more easily by recovering shadows without deliberately exposing to the right. I no longer care about capturing the more information, I just want the best looking image.
Robin Whalley g
At 2.41 you say look at the sky, the area aound the sun is not as badly clipped in an exposure you say is 2 stops under exposed. Maybe I am missing something, but this sugggests to me that you ARE exposing to the right with this exposure and that the exposure you describe as correct went beyond a realistic ETTR. Surely the point about ETTR is that you set the exposure of the brightness area THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU to the right? This may mean that some areas such as the area immediately around the sun in this scene will be blown out but that will not necessarily look unrealistic.
The exposure I was highlighting in the video wasn't intended to use ETTR. This was the exposure calculated by the camera to be correct and used a three stop Reverse ND Grad filter on the sky to cover the sun. The Sun was clipped but the sky surrounding it isn't. What's happened is that the tones are all compressed into a small tonal range. When you try to darken the sky, the tones in that area don't separate out which causes the problem and the sky looks ugly. I seem to find ETTR causes these areas of "compressed tones" more often and that it can be hard to fix this. None of the images in the video were exposed using ETTR. It was a straight bracket (2 stops under and 2 over) from the camera default exposure.
We're never too old to learn eh? Anyway, I got rid of my Adobe products earlier this this year. I now only have Capture One 20 and Affinity Photo. There are times I wish I could blend 2-3 images with different exposures. Do you or have you found Affinity Photo to work well with a couple of images, one exposed for the highlights and the other other for the shadows. Not interested in HDR styles, I only want to replace the sky from one to the other. I haven't really found any videos out there including the Affinity site that cover this procedure. I really, really don't want to go back to PS just for the occasional landscape sunset/sunrise exposure blending.
What technique did you use in PS for exposure blending earlier? If you were using luminosity masking techniques there are similar ways of doing that in Affinity too. Actually, Robin has some very good videos on exactly that topic here on UA-cam. Check it out! -Blend Ranges: ua-cam.com/video/uaZKayQZn-c/v-deo.html -Luminosity Masking: ua-cam.com/video/d0rXKW5b9qM/v-deo.html
Also, check this guy out. He got a ton of interesting stuff for us Affinity users, including some free macros: ua-cam.com/channels/OnLUmyPHr2rayOHVHWsHVw.html
I do use an XT2, XT3 and Capture One for the post processing. Do you only use the XT3 or do you have similar results with the XT2? My experience with Capture One is that I can easily make the shadows lighter wthout getting noise you can see. The Fuji XT 3 has a lot of potential in the shadows. I do not know for the XT2. And realy it is also a matter of taste. Too open shadows do not look natural to my taste.
I also have good results from the XT2 (although I had that converted to shoot infrared). I also agree with your point about the open shadows. Dark shadows can add a lot of feeling to an image and it's too easy to strip that away.
I have an X-T2 and use Capture One - I find shadow recovery is fine. If you are processing an underexposed image, I would suggest that you start first to see how the Black slider works rather the using the Shadow slider straightaway - even a very slight lifting of the Black slider can have a dramatic effect without the more overall effect of the Shadow slider.
I don't agree with this video at all. I accept ETTR was more important with older sensors as they introduced a lot of noise when boosting the shadows, but you still had to avoid clipping highlights. ETTR never meant not clipping the blacks so as having to avoid boosting shadows ( if that is what you mean ) like you would with negative film.
I agree with you about avoiding clipping and it seems a lot of people have become confused by my example in the video. The image I showed didn't use the ETTR technique. I showed the "correctly exposed" image to illustrate the point of what happens when the tones become compressed into a small tonal range. It becomes very difficult or even impossible to separate them. This problem now seems to happen more in the highlights than the shadows.
The point of the video was to show that it's easy to recover shadow tones in a realistic way. I now find this easier to do than trying to separate compressed highlights. But this does seem to depend on the camera which is why I recommend experimenting.
@RobinWhalley you appear to be making up your own definition of "correctly exposed ". If you're going to do this, you must explain your definition and be very careful to be consistent in your use.
Another factor usually overlooked is that it makes a big difference whether you use a camera with a 12 bit image depth or one with 16 bits.
Convincing description- I‘ll try ...
It's worth testing it. As I said in the video I see variation between my cameras.
I have always felt guilty for not exposing to the right. It's all about looking at the histogram.
It is but you can't trust the histogram in a lot of cameras to tell you whats in the RAW file and what the software is able to do with it.
Robin Whalley agreed Robin. I’ve just started using FastRawViewer for culling RAW files, and the histogram is SO different when viewing the embedded jpg v the RAW.
Always underexposed and never exposed to the right as it burns data in digital photos.
much talk but sorry I learnt nothing.