Does digital tempt you to shoot your M camera with a slower shutter...

[Julian Thompson]

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I was toying with the idea of having a go at a bit of film shooting, and thinking about the way I do digital it really wouldn't work.

 

Today I found myself at the side of a canal. I had ISO 320 selected and I wanted some depth of field but a bit of personality so from memory I was using approx F4. Sky was very overcast and the scene was quite dim to the eye because of the tree canopy.

 

I am trying to work hard to determine what shutter speeds to use without the meter to improve my technique and I did quite well with it - 1/250 I decided.

 

I shot - and had a look at the image in the LCD. Perfect actually - I was really pleased. If that had been film it would have presumably turned into a beautiful result.

 

But then, I checked the histogram (knowing secretly that this dilemma was going to unfold!) and yes - all huddled up there on the left!

 

So - that means I'm using hardly any of the camera's dynamic range.

 

So here's the point of my rambling.

 

Was my photo not a success as far as 'correct' digital technique is concerned? Should I really expose up to the limit and then throttle it all back in post to maximise the dynamics or should I shoot it to be right as I see it straight off the shutter?

 

I'm at a bit of a creative crossroads with this and would appreciate some discussion!

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

[ASpes]

I was toying with the idea of having a go at a bit of film shooting, and thinking about the way I do digital it really wouldn't work.

...

I shot - and had a look at the image in the LCD. Perfect actually - I was really pleased. If that had been film it would have presumably turned into a beautiful result.

 

But then, I checked the histogram (knowing secretly that this dilemma was going to unfold!) and yes - all huddled up there on the left!

...

Was my photo not a success as far as 'correct' digital technique is concerned? Should I really expose up to the limit and then throttle it all back in post to maximise the dynamics or should I shoot it to be right as I see it straight off the shutter?

 

I'm at a bit of a creative crossroads with this and would appreciate some discussion!

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Julian,

 

the first thing to say is that no camera LCD today is a good way to judge the success of a picture, at least as far as exposure and colours are concerned. It's good to check composition and details and maybe focus but it's not reliable for the rest. Your histogram is your one and best friend for it.

 

The second thing depends on your choice of your final output, I mean camera output in this case. If you rely on jpegs (and maybe keeping raws as a "spare wheel" for the difficult ones) you got to maximise your DR on the spot, so to say, knowing that your options with pp will be more limited as your pic quality will be affected by whatever you do in it.

On the other hand if you go for raws you should maximise your instrument output (keyword is "expose to the right"), because you will "unfold" it to its best in your (mandatory) pp. This means that, as you said, it would not be logical to waste a good part of the info you can record in your file by working "the jpeg way", though such a raw will still give you some more headroom to play with.

 

Now to answer more directly to your question, imo what really counts is that you are able to get your image at its best for the use you plan to.

At the same time, not exploiting your instrument to the most it can give, you will definitely affect your chances of success with it.

 

So guess you have to choose your method and learn how to get the best out of it. With an M8 the "best" starts with only one option: raw.

 

 

Just my 2 (euro)cent of course.

[Guest WPalank]

Forget the technical mumbo jumbo. How did the IMAGE look to you?

[Bo_Lorentzen]

Julian,

 

William said it best.... how do the image look to you..?

 

Though regardless of film or digital... it normally does make sense to use as much as possible of the mediums dynamic range... digital is really not any different from film in that way. or at least that is how it seems to work for me.

 

.

[giordano]

If the histogram isall bunched up towards the left but doesn't actually hit the left margin, it means you had a subject with a narrow range from darkest to brightest. In that situation even a digital camera has plenty of latitude. In film terms you'd have had a thin but perfectly usable negative. Giving a bit more exposure would have moved the histogram to the right and slightly reduced the amount of noise, but no more.

 

If the histogram is "cut off" at the left it means you have significant areas of the image that have exposed as deep shadow with no detail. In a low-range scene that definitely means you should have given more exposure.

[Julian Thompson]

Thanks guys - I always shoot raw - and the photo looked perfect on the LCD and the screen.

 

But what I mean is that in this case I know I could have exposed it more and then throttled the brightness back - a really 'digital' thing to do.

 

Which is the best way to shoot?

[ASpes]

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Forget the technical mumbo jumbo. How did the IMAGE look to you?

 

nice oneliner but wrong question for at least a couple reasons ...

 

...first he already said that, and, second, his question is quite different, please read it again, he's asking about the "correct digital technique", is it sort of mandatory for a successful image?

 

Actually what "looks" is not necessarily enough for what we were planning to do with that image. As I said, *this* is the only thing that really counts and makes that image "successful", after all we usually take a pic for some purpose, don't we?

 

Given that, it's our choice either to maximise our chances of success since the very start using our instrument to the best it can give, or just get away with the "good enough" level for the job.

 

Maximise our chances is good for our survival, why should we behave differently with digital photography?

 

All the best.

[Jamie Roberts]

Except for out and out clipping of subject highlights (NOT speculars) or burying subject details in shadow beyond your ability to bring them back, forget the histogram. It lies and William is completely correct!

 

Why?

 

 

• it only measures JPEG response, not RAW. So what you're "measuring" with the histo is wrong anyway if you're shooting RAW
  
• What are you measuring again, anyway, with the histo? If your subject is a black cat, there's absolutely no need whatsoever to overexpose it just to get some mythical detail. It's black for heaven's sake
  
• And what are you really measuring? Let's pretend your histo could read RAW data (it can't, remember): Can you tell subject detail (upper quartertone or lower quartertone ranges)? No--speculars and low-end shadows will defeat the "sense" of the histo everytime--unless you have the time and patience to zoom into every area and see where the tones fall. I don't need a histo to do that; my eyes can tell me that after shooting for awhile.
  
• RAW on the M8 at ISO 320 (and 160 and 640) has loads of latitude in the shadows (and a fair bit in the highlights too). You don't need to worry about having an exposure a bit "to the left" if the overall tonality of the shot is right.
  

 

So in many ways, the histo is your very worst enemy for proper exposure, including proper digital technique. Personally, if I know I've got a good exposure, then I ignore the histo.

 

Another way to put this is that in normal conditions, both the LCD and the histo are only very rough guides. I go by the LCD first, FWIW, which isn't much

 

There is only one exception to the above IMO, when you're shooting at or near the limit of high ISO capability (on any given camera) and you need shadow detail. Your only hope there is to "push to the right" and bring it back in post because at that point your camera has no exposure latitude and very limited dynamic range. It's ok--it's still more than most prints, but you need to work within the range of a camera that really can no longer record the range of tones as it normally would (let alone as your eye sees them).

 

In that case a histogram can help, but even then not as much as the LCD and your own sense of exposrue. You still need to decide what to blow out or what to bury in shadow (I find the clip indicator on the LCD a more useful guide in those circumstances, since I just need to make sure I haven't clipped important upper midtones).

[Julian Thompson]

That's fastastic information.

 

It really means that in fact I'm not shooting for mood - I'm shooting to capture maximum data.

 

The mood comes later in PP.

 

Thats an incredibly significant change for me - I can see in every respect its technically better but it feels a little odd!

[Julian Thompson]

Just one thing - surely we are not saying the histogram is useless in RAW? Although there is more latitude/safety margin surely the M8 histogram will be pretty close to that which I later see in Aperture?

[Jamie Roberts]

Just one thing - surely we are not saying the histogram is useless in RAW? Although there is more latitude/safety margin surely the M8 histogram will be pretty close to that which I later see in Aperture?

 

I personally think the histo is next to useless in 90% of cases anyway, but in RAW it certainly doesn't represent anything like the headroom or shadow room you really have in a good raw converter (again, except at the very highest ISOs, where you need a better metering technique than "checking the histo" anyway )

 

So put in your terms: at very high ISOs you may need to shoot for "data"... but in 90% of cases yes, you are shooting for "mood" since that's part of proper exposure. (Finishing the mood, or emphasizing it in post, is another question entirely for me).

[ASpes]

...

It really means that in fact I'm not shooting for mood - I'm shooting to capture maximum data.

The mood comes later in PP.

...

 

Julian,

 

guess your sentence sums up exactly what exposure should be in a digital environment.

Each step from that optimum will halve our data, this is a fact, and limit what we can do in later pp.

 

Now the problem is to get there as close as possible.

 

LCD. Until we can calibrate our LCD we cannot rely on what it shows, and even that day, especially when working in the open, our eyes (and brain) will outsmart it as they adapt to the light we are in, both for brightness and colour, so it will still be difficult to judge from it.

 

Histogram. That it is built on the (gamma-corrected) jpeg and not the (linear) raw data it's a given and well known fact since years, no big news and lots of threads on this, but anyway 'till the computers in our cameras will become powerful (and cheap) enough to display a sensor histogram, we have to make do with what we have.

 

Besides let's not forget that with the M8 we have options that make it more useful, brightness of course but also RGB and even make it reference a magnified portion of the pic. Its resolution on the display is also what it is, so short of shooting tethered to our computer, why give up all this instead of having it help us?

 

In any case though it's not a perfect guide it's the best we have, so better use it and build up our experience. This is actually the magic word that could bring together and understand the positions that are apparently clashing in this thread.

 

When we have eventually build our experience, we don't need to chimp or check a histogram, we don't even need a light meter, but all these tools are there to give us a feedback so that we can be sure to have grabbed that image at its best.

 

 

Best of luck.

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

Histogram. That it is built on the (gamma-corrected) jpeg and not the (linear) raw data it's a given and well known fact since years, no big news and lots of threads on this, but anyway 'till the computers in our cameras will become powerful (and cheap) enough to display a sensor histogram, we have to make do with what we have.

 

{snipped}

 

In any case though it's not a perfect guide it's the best we have, so better use it and build up our experience. This is actually the magic word that could bring together and understand the positions that are apparently clashing in this thread.

 

{snipped}

 

I agree with you on experience--that is one of the best paths to success--you do learn how light works and to guess exposure accurately after awhile. And in the original post, Julian was successful in his own view until he checked the histo

 

I'll re-iterate: even if the histo could read RAW data it's next to impossible to tell where the data falls in relation to the subject (most important part) of the image, unless you sit there and zoom around on the LCD. So it's not very useful if speed is important

 

And while it may be true "it's not news" that the histo doesn't measure RAW exposure, many people don't understand that despite the many threads out there.

 

I actually wholeheartedly believe that the best teaching tool for exposure is a good incident meter. Once you learn how light falling on a subject works as opposed to guessing an 18% neutral refectance, it becomes a lot easier to get great and predictable exposures without recourse to the histogram.

[giordano]

I actually wholeheartedly believe that the best teaching tool for exposure is a good incident meter. Once you learn how light falling on a subject works as opposed to guessing an 18% neutral refectance, it becomes a lot easier to get great and predictable exposures without recourse to the histogram.

 

I entirely agree with this - but also stand by what I said about the histogram in relation to short-range subjects.

[danhefner]

 

The mood comes later in PP.

 

 

 

Sad, actually.

 

Mood should instead underlie the inspiration to take a shot a priori.

 

This sentiment suggests that digital photography will divulge (has divulged) into the realm of the clinical. Will the art of photography shun the thrill of the shot - where the mood of the moment motivates the photographer to shoot - in favor of a mechanistic approach, where one seeks to rescue a mood from an arbitrary shot? Where's the art?

 

I LOVE my M8, it has taught me so much about photography, seeing the world, and image processing. Yet, now I think I will acquire an analog M, especially in light of this post. If I have to choose when to expose one of only 36 frames on a roll of film in a camera, then I will have to think (or feel) ahead of time when is the right time to use that shot. That will happen when the mood strikes me (and when I can think quickly enough to select the exposure/aperture/focus for the shot).

[Ro1and]

Julian- Please read this, I found it very helpful.

 

Understanding Histograms

 

Roland

[Ro1and]

Julian- I found this helpful as well.

 

Expose Right

 

Roland

[jaapv]

 

The mood comes later in PP.

 

I utterly disagree. The shot must be visualized before pressing the shutter. Postprocessing is needed to recreate that visualization.

Going the opposite way about it is photographic opportunism. Technique is a tool, not a goal.

[Guest WPalank]

I utterly disagree. The shot must be visualized before pressing the shutter. Postprocessing is needed to recreate that visualization.

Going the opposite way about it is photographic opportunism. Technique is a tool, not a goal.

 

Yup!

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

I LOVE my M8, it has taught me so much about photography, seeing the world, and image processing. Yet, now I think I will acquire an analog M, especially in light of this post. If I have to choose when to expose one of only 36 frames on a roll of film in a camera, then I will have to think (or feel) ahead of time when is the right time to use that shot. That will happen when the mood strikes me (and when I can think quickly enough to select the exposure/aperture/focus for the shot).

 

They're not really as different as you think, except film allows for a bit more slop in exposure (well, black and white film, anyway).

 

In some ways you have to be more careful with the M8, in others not as much.

 

But I agree (as usual) with William and Jaap--mood *is* what you shoot for and technique is a tool; proper exposure ensures you get the effect you're going after (that's not to say somethings don't come in post either. Ansel Adams certainly pre-visualized, but didn't neglect post processing in the slightest).