Exposing to the right of the histogram

[phil1066]

Read about this recently and wondered if anyone here uses this technique? On the LCD screen you will get over-exposed images  but apparently this can be corrected at RAW conversion stage.

[Syman]

Hmmmm... Seems like a strange idea to me.  I would say that you should expose for the subject not for the the histogram. Some subjects are better under exposed, some over and some need to be spot on.  So to set a rule like "expose to the right of the histogram" seems a bit like saying you should over expose all of your images?

I know this much for sure. If your histogram goes off the scale on the right you have lost highlight detail. This is not recoverable. Software may "fill in" these areas but it  is effectively just making the detail up.


My general advice would be to shoot so that you maintain detail in as much of the image a possible (Obviously there are occasions when you would want to blow out highlights or black out the shadows in an image)  It is so much easier to blow out highlights or black out shadows afterwards in software, you can take detail away but you can't put it back if its not there to start with.

Expose for the subject, that's my advice.

[Pete W]

Strange I thought it was shoot left 

[phil1066]

thanks - yes the article did mention avoiding clipping, but also said that generally the lighter the image the more is captured on the sensor. Over or underexposure can be corrected using software - but I think their point was about capturing as many pixels on the sensor (without clipping).

Interesting idea.

[Pete W]

Here is some good info on Histograms

http://www.thedigitalstory.com/blog/2006/01/learning_the_histogr.html