From the mailbag: With a hint and some assistance from George Jardine, I finally figured out how to optimize exposure (ETTR). The key was George’s statement that he spot metered for the highest significant tone, and placed it just under clipping. As you have found, the histogram lies and matrix, evaluative, center weighted metering is… [Read More]
Archives for December 5, 2012
Testing for ETTR, part 6
I’m pretty happy with the image settings I came up with to make the D4 in-camera histogram approximate the real raw histogram. Using those settings, however, means not having the convenience of the D4’s exemplary automatic white balance. I guess I’ll use it with fixed white balance when I really care about getting the ultimate… [Read More]
Testing for ETTR, part 5
Well, I just spent the whole afternoon on this, but I’ve now got a set of settings for the D4 that give a pretty good approximation to the real raw histogram. The white balance was the problem. Here’s my reasoning; I’m not sure of it yet, but it seems to make sense so far. The… [Read More]
Testing for ETTR, part 4
In an attempt to find a set of D4 picture settings that made the in-camera histogram look like the true raw histogram, I set the contrast to minimum, the brightness to minimum, and the saturation down one click from standard. It helped, but it wasn’t enough. The test image: The in-camera histogram, used to find… [Read More]
Testing for ETTR, part 3
Now let’s turn things around, and see what we get for a true raw histogram when we set the exposure so that the in-camera histogram is just short of clipping, which occurs at a shutter speed 1 2/3 stops faster than the metered exposure, and a full stop faster than the correct ETTR exposure. The… [Read More]