I did state skin tones. there is no better raw way compared to in-camera tools . i shot a waxy surface yellow leaf in bright sunlight today. the normal exposed jpeg out of camera was better than the processed raw . the waxy surface is just like sweaty skin compared to powered makeup skin. exposing for raw was a mistake.
May 9, 2023
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Given how many times you have made statements that are just not true, all of the above is meaningless and probably also not true unless you post the raw files.
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does not even come close to proving your opinion
is true.
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I think that you're completely wrong. Your workflow might work for you, but personally I wouldn't recommend anyone really concerned about skin tones to depend on in-camera tools.
In the end this is a case of learning styles. You seem to like a lot of trial and error, and a kind of random walk path to what seems to you to work best. I, and I suspect most of the people that you argue with, prefer to understand the processes they are dealing with, then take a systematic route to a solution. Both approaches can produce good results, but my experience across several fields is that the latter is more likely to end in a better result and does it more quickly. -
Trial and error ? ive been shooting the same for 15 years . im just seeing if anyone else has a better way. and after the last few weeks i cant see any. its just confusing alot of people from my experience.
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Why should I recommend any method? Jim and Iliah and others have already done so. As I said, most of my general photography I don't bother with trying to get the absolute best exposure, because the difference between that and 'good enough' is not too critical to me, so I go with quicker and dirty. Generally for most things I have M + Auto ISO + some EC depending on my estimate of the conditions. I'm never trying to use exposure to control tonality. I'm setting aperture and shutter according to DOF and motion blur requirements. Studio work is somewhat different, in that I can control lighting too, and shutter doesn't do much.
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so this is different than the way i shoot ?
To review, here’s how to get optimum raw exposures:
Set your ISO to base ISO.
Set your f-stop to the stop you need to get the depth of field you want.
Set your shutter speed to get as much or as little blur as you want.
Check the histogram or the zebras to make sure you’re not going to clip any important highlights. If you are, stop down or set a faster shutter speed.
If the histogram shows no information on the right side, consider boosting the ISO setting, but don’t be aggressive about that. If your camera offers dual conversion gain and you want to boost the detail in the deep shadows, you might consider setting the ISO to the lowest setting that gets the high conversion gain. Don’t plan for doing more than a four or five-stop push in postproduction. -
The problem is a lack of precision in the zebras or histogram. They are both based on JPEG measures, which might result in leaving up to a stop of raw headroom. Whilst the exposure is raw, the ISO setting isn't. If your ISO setting is too low you'll lose some DR in some cases, so whilst the exposure might be the 'best', the camera settings as a whole aren't.
Most of the things you're arguing against are exactly about that gap. -
For the sake of clarity you should have mentioned you copied and pasted "To review, here’s how to get optimum raw exposures:" from JimKasson's article linked to in his op.
www.lensrentals.com/blog/2023/05/how-to-expose-raw-files-part-2/
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What are you guys talking about? :))
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Thanks Jim, I think the bolded bit nails the difference between why I shoot auto ISO over you shooting fixed. It’s that couple of seconds to adjust thing. I need to be ready to press the shutter to capture a decisive moment at any time and I will sacrifice a potential upgrade in file quality by eliminating that crucial couple of seconds, by which time the moment has passed.
I have similar considerations about how I set my AF up too.
I want the camera and it’s tech to get out of the way of me nailing a moment, not slow me down.
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For Sony shooters you can adjust Zebra thresholds. The rule of thumb is a setting of 70 for videographers, 100 for jpeg stills and, crucially, 109+ for raw stills.
That latter setting is basically telling the camera, hey I’m shooting raw so I’ve got a higher clipping threshold.
In other words it’s more useful than a jpeg histogram. I’ve come to really appreciate this feature!
This video from Mark Galer does a brilliant job of explaining it:
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If I'm not missing something, he doesn't show raw histograms. As Donald discovered, zebras with this 109+ setting resulted in more than 1/3 EV down from ETTR, and that's for a regular daylight scene, nothing fancy like a red or a blue flower.
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Yep, I didn’t say it was perfect, but it’s the best implementation I’ve seen in a brand so far. It’s still not a raw histogram, but I find it more useful than the usual jpeg histogram in the EVF or on the rear screen in real time during dynamic fast paced shooting situations.
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So fully Manual then?
Odd that your earlier posted example raw shot was done in Aperture Priority ...
... in which case, how about:
Set your ISO to base ISO.
Set your f-stop to the stop you need to get the depth of field you want.
See if the automatically-set shutter speed gave as much or as little blur as you want. If not, play with EC and to hell with the correct exposure. 😉 -
I'm addressing the presentation, which skips important factual data and thus may mislead.
For some reason the followers of 109+ idea consider it very reliable and also don't do proper testing. -
Give me the words that confuse you and I'll add them to the glossary.
Precision is confusing? I would have thought the opposite.
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You missed the images in the Lensrentals post? You must have been skimming...
