Clipping issue mostly solved

[AlexY]

Just to make it clear, fine tuning optimal exposure can be applied very selectively. I have the highlights only set to minus 1/6 of a stop. This does not affect the exposure for other areas of the frame. It just gives a little help to reduce clipping highlights.

A question - which Nikon camera does this refer to? I have the D500 and the only menu option that I can find is b7: fine tune optimal exposure, wherein you have a choice of Matrix, Centre weighted, Spot and Highlight-weighted metering. Within each of the 4 modes, you can modify the compensation in steps of 1/6, so by my understanding, you'd have to be shooting in the Highlight-weighted metering mode...or have I missed something?
Cheers,
Alex

 

[AstroEd]

Some of the replies to this thread are talking about the dangers of underexposing and I'm completely on board with everything said on that. However that is if you underexpose across the board.

Just to make it clear, fine tuning optimal exposure can be applied very selectively. I have the highlights only set to minus 1/6 of a stop. This does not affect the exposure for other areas of the frame. It just gives a little help to reduce clipping highlights.

The original post here said " I was striving to always get my exposure meter dead center and kept clipping or blowing out my highlights " and this is one way to stop or reduce it. If after trying different settings anyone is not happy with the results, the settings can always be put back to default.

Something that has not yet been said is "Are you looking at the LCD to check for clipping or viewing RAW files on a computer?" Bear in mind that if you look at the LCD and have highlight blinkies turned on, the embedded jpg in the RAW file is what you are seeing (as is the histogram) so that image might show clipping/blinkies where the RAW file won't.

Highlights are my biggest issue currently.

 

[Replytoken]

Highlights are my biggest issue currently.

The histogram is your friend (at least partially). It will be reading off the embedded jpeg file IIRC, but is still quite helpful. The other thing that you could do is to exposure bracket until you get on top of this.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[dabhand16]

Are you referring to Nikon picture control settings?

No. Those are for jpgs. I'm talking about the menu item fine tune optimal exposure.

You can also use negative exposure comp as well. Every Nikon digital body I’ve owned required between -1/3 and -1 exposure comp to eliminate blown whites.

Doing that will affect the whole image and as others have said will compromise the overall exposure Using fine tune optimal exposure only affects the highlights unless you choose other parts of the exposure.

 

[dabhand16]

A question - which Nikon camera does this refer to? I have the D500 and the only menu option that I can find is b7: fine tune optimal exposure, wherein you have a choice of Matrix, Centre weighted, Spot and Highlight-weighted metering. Within each of the 4 modes, you can modify the compensation in steps of 1/6, so by my understanding, you'd have to be shooting in the Highlight-weighted metering mode...or have I missed something?
Cheers,
Alex

On my D700, D810 and D850 in the b7 menu I can tweak all 4 of the exposure modes - or just one if you wish. So that is the same as your D500. If you have to be in highlight weighted mode for this to work, why would they put Matrix, centre weighted and spot in the menu too?

 

[dabhand16]

Highlights are my biggest issue currently.

Are you looking at the LCD to check for clipping or viewing RAW files on a computer? Bear in mind that if you look at the LCD and have highlight blinkies turned on, the embedded jpg in the RAW file is what you are seeing (as is the histogram) so that image might show clipping/blinkies where the RAW file won't.

Does your camera have fine tune optimum exposure in the menu? B7 on my D850. If so try my suggestion as see how you get on. You can always reset to default after you have experimented if you want to.

 

[AstroEd]

Are you looking at the LCD to check for clipping or viewing RAW files on a computer? Bear in mind that if you look at the LCD and have highlight blinkies turned on, the embedded jpg in the RAW file is what you are seeing (as is the histogram) so that image might show clipping/blinkies where the RAW file won't.

Does your camera have fine tune optimum exposure in the menu? B7 on my D850. If so try my suggestion as see how you get on. You can always reset to default after you have experimented if you want to.

I have it set up when I play images I took it flashes the areas that are clipping but I even see it in images I swear were dead center of the exposure meter when I took them. This confuses me.

 

[dabhand16]

I have it set up when I play images I took it flashes the areas that are clipping but I even see it in images I swear were dead center of the exposure meter when I took them. This confuses me.

Don't forget that the meter will average the exposure across the frame unless you are using spot or centre weighting. This is why the meter is dead centre as the overall exposure is "correct". You can't rely on what the meter is telling you. Conversely, if you use - say - spot metering, it will be accurate for the area you meter from but anything else outside of the spot area will be either over or under. Also the LCD and the blinkies flashing are from the embedded jpg and the RAW image may not be over exposed. You can onlty see this when viewing the picture on a monitor.

If you dial in a minus exposure compensation you might be able to get the highlights correct, but this will affect the whole frame so other areas will br under exposed. This why I'm saying that the optimum fine tuning will enable you to selectively tweak just the highlights. It might not be able to totally cure it, but it can reduce it, just as you can in post with the highlights slider.

If you spot meter from the highlight area it won't blink/flash as that area is properly exposed, but the overall exposure will be well under exposed.

 

[AlexY]

On my D700, D810 and D850 in the b7 menu I can tweak all 4 of the exposure modes - or just one if you wish. So that is the same as your D500. If you have to be in highlight weighted mode for this to work, why would they put Matrix, centre weighted and spot in the menu too?

Thanks, Graham, good point...I hadn't thought of it in that way. I'll give it a try, although highlight clipping is not often an issue for me unless I'm going for a high chroma effect and of course, I want the highlights clipped.
Cheers...

 

[NorthernFocus]

No. Those are for jpgs. I'm talking about the menu item fine tune optimal exposure.

Doing that will affect the whole image and as others have said will compromise the overall exposure Using fine tune optimal exposure only affects the highlights unless you choose other parts of the exposure.

If I'm reading this right it sounds like you have a misunderstanding of this function. Fine tune optimal exposure is simply a way to bias the metering. Every pixel on the sensor is still exposed to and records the same amount(duration) of light.

Read carefully the description in the D850 manual for the b7 feature:

Use this option to fine-tune the exposure value selected by the camera. Exposure can be fine-tuned separately for each metering method by from +1 to _1 EV in steps of 1/6 EV.

This is a metering function not an image processing function. How images are processed is only changed with the Picture Controls, HDR shooting and Active D Lighting functions.

I understand that you are getting the results that you seek by doing what you're doing. But biasing the meter does in fact effect the exposure of the entire image.

 

[bleirer]

It would be magical if we could selectively expose. I guess going back to the definition of exposure as being a certain amount of light for a certain amount of time. So f stop and shutter speed. Technically even iso is not exposure.[/QUOTE]

 

[bleirer]

I have it set up when I play images I took it flashes the areas that are clipping but I even see it in images I swear were dead center of the exposure meter when I took them. This confuses me.

Only the pixels/photosites that are blown or nearly blown will be flashing. Since the flashing is based on the jpeg processing you still have a little room in the raw past the beginning of the flashing. On my camera if I find the highest nonflashing exposure I still have 2/3 stops of headroom if I need it. On my camera two of the 3 colors have to be blown to get a blinkie. Shooting a red flower for example I can still overexpose and get no blinkies In that case you could take note of what the histogram is doing at that highest exposure. I use the 3 separate color one, and note how much the highest one is climbing the right wall to get an idea how far to push it.

Avoid Overexposure With Blinkies - Backcountry Gallery

Use your camera's highlight warning - blinkies - to avoid overexposure. This video covers the basics and advanced techniques (including channel clipping).

backcountrygallery.com

Reading And Understanding Histograms In Photography - Backcountry Gallery

Want to know one of the secrets to perfect exposure? One word: Histograms Sure, it sounds a little intimidating at first, like something your high school math teacher would force on your tired brain first thing Monday morning, but I promise, it’s way easier than it sounds. Plus, once you...

backcountrygallery.com

 

[DRwyoming]

but I even see it in images I swear were dead center of the exposure meter when I took them. This confuses me.

To understand that you have to understand how light meters work.

Light meters start with the assumption that all subjects are mid-toned and reflect 18% of the light hitting them. That's a pretty good assumption for many photos like green summer grass that reflects about 18% of the incident light or the blue clear sky or many photos with a variety of light and dark tones in them. So if you shoot things like that having the meter dead center will work fine.

But as you start to get closer to specific subjects and fill more of the frame with subjects that aren't mid-toned like a bright white bird or a dark black bear or a lot of other wildlife subjects that aren't close to mid toned and fill enough of the frame to heavily influence the metering then that 18% reflection assumption built into light meters starts to break down. So if your subjects are much brighter than mid toned and fill most of the frame then you need to basically tell the camera you want an image brighter than mid toned and you dial in positive exposure compensation. If you have a very dark subject filling most or all of the frame you have to tell the camera your subject should be much darker than mid tone and you dial in negative exposure compensation.

Where it gets tricky is if you have combinations like some small to mid sized bright white birds against very dark backgrounds. Both the birds (that don't take up the whole frame) and the background influences the metering. If the dark background takes up a lot of the frame the meter will tend to over expose the image trying to make it mid-toned (18% reflectivity) and those white birds will get totally blown out. the opposite can happen as well like a dark Moose on snow where you're farther away or using a wider angle lens so that the snow takes up a fair amount of the photo. In that case the camera's meter will see all that snow and underexpose the image to get that bright snow to be mid-toned and the dark Moose will be underexposed.

For slow moving or static subjects you can get more precise with your metering by switching from Matrix metering that uses parts of the whole image to Spot metering that only uses a small spot around the focusing point to do the metering. That can help but isn't great for fast moving subjects as you really want to keep that metering spot right on your target (e.g. right on the bright bird or right on the dark moose) and still have to use exposure compensation unless the area right under your spot happens to be mid-toned.

The bottom line is that camera meters don't know what you're pointing the camera at. They basically don't know your subject or what's filling the frame so a centered meter only means the combination of tones under the metering area are being exposed to be mid-toned. If you shoot shots with a wide variety of tones like folks at a family picnic it tends to average out to mid-tone and work just fine without any exposure comp but the more you get selective and fill your frame or shoot subjects that aren't close to mid tone or complex scenes with a big tonal difference between your subject and the background the more you have to tell the meter to correct for the scene not being mid-toned and we do that with the Exposure Compensation controls.

Even in the best modern cameras (and the D500 is a top notch camera) it's up to us to adjust exposure for changing scenes and to basically tell the camera when the scene we're photographing isn't a mid-toned scene using the exposure compensation control to force a brighter or darker exposure than what the meter would do by itself based on that mid-toned 18% reflectivity assumption. There are a lot of ways to achieve good exposure but it's up to us as photographers to do that and unfortunately just centering the meter isn't enough in a lot of cases because the meter has no idea what kind of subject we're putting in the viewfinder.

 

[AstroEd]

Don't forget that the meter will average the exposure across the frame unless you are using spot or centre weighting. This is why the meter is dead centre as the overall exposure is "correct". You can't rely on what the meter is telling you. Conversely, if you use - say - spot metering, it will be accurate for the area you meter from but anything else outside of the spot area will be either over or under. Also the LCD and the blinkies flashing are from the embedded jpg and the RAW image may not be over exposed. You can onlty see this when viewing the picture on a monitor.

If you dial in a minus exposure compensation you might be able to get the highlights correct, but this will affect the whole frame so other areas will br under exposed. This why I'm saying that the optimum fine tuning will enable you to selectively tweak just the highlights. It might not be able to totally cure it, but it can reduce it, just as you can in post with the highlights slider.

If you spot meter from the highlight area it won't blink/flash as that area is properly exposed, but the overall exposure will be well under exposed.

Oh I thought the images were ruined if I saw blinking when reviewing shots on the camera, I have deleted hundreds of images since seeing the video for turning on blinkies.

 

[dabhand16]

If I'm reading this right it sounds like you have a misunderstanding of this function. Fine tune optimal exposure is simply a way to bias the metering. Every pixel on the sensor is still exposed to and records the same amount(duration) of light.

Read carefully the description in the D850 manual for the b7 feature:

This is a metering function not an image processing function. How images are processed is only changed with the Picture Controls, HDR shooting and Active D Lighting functions.

I understand that you are getting the results that you seek by doing what you're doing. But biasing the meter does in fact effect the exposure of the entire image.

Thanks for this Dan.

I was swayed by an article I read written by someone who uses this and the way it came across was how I described it.

However - it does allow finer adjustments than Exp comp and you can set the different exp modes differently like appling it to matrix only. It will give a touch more latitude for the highlights though at little expense for the rest of the image.

 

[dabhand16]

Oh I thought the images were ruined if I saw blinking when reviewing shots on the camera, I have deleted hundreds of images since seeing the video for turning on blinkies.

FWIW - I've turned blinkies off on my Fuji cameras as it interfered with focus peaking and I have had no issues. Sometimes ingorence is bliss.

 

[bleirer]

Oh I thought the images were ruined if I saw blinking when reviewing shots on the camera, I have deleted hundreds of images since seeing the video for turning on blinkies.

The only way to be certain is to view it in your raw converter (Lightroom or whatever you use). If a specular highlight like the sun or something less important like a tiny section of cloud has a blinkie you might not care or can clone something to fix it. Overexposure is not a problem for raw in general as long as you haven't gone so far over that detail is lost in an important part of the image.

 

[AstroEd]

The only way to be certain is to view it in your raw converter (Lightroom or whatever you use). If a specular highlight like the sun or something less important like a tiny section of cloud has a blinkie you might not care or can clone something to fix it. Overexposure is not a problem for raw in general as long as you haven't gone so far over that detail is lost in an important part of the image.

Thanks for the info, I have been tossing anything blinking even if it were just a couple pixels. To be fair I doubt any of the tossed images were anything high quality.

 

[DRwyoming]

Thanks for the info, I have been tossing anything blinking even if it were just a couple pixels. To be fair I doubt any of the tossed images were anything high quality.

Yeah, as Bill posted above the key is if 'important image information' is clipped and blown out. Basically think of any area of whites that are hard clipped as places where if you printed the image the printer wouldn't put down any ink and you'd just have white glossy paper in those areas. If it's just tiny bits like a spec here and there in the clouds or a bit of light shining off of whitewater peaks in rapids or maybe little glints off of glass surfaces catching light then it can actually add interest to the image. But if it's large and important areas like the white breast of a bird where all the feather detail is lost or large sections of clouds that lose all their texture then it's generally a problem.

And also as Bill has pointed out a couple of times, those blinkies and the in-camera histogram are based on an in-camera jpeg so if you shoot raw you might have a half stop or more of margin to save some of those clipped whites during post processing. It's still good to check your blinkies or histogram but if it's just tiny bits of the image blinking and you're shooting raw there's a decent chance you can save the image or if they're really tiny areas or in places where it should be brilliantly bright (again like specular highlights off a wine glass) then the image could be fine.

 

[aolander]

I doesn't always matter that you've "dead centered" the meter. If the range of brightness values is wide, even a centered meter exposure may clip both ends of the histogram.

 

[Replytoken]

I doesn't always matter that you've "dead centered" the meter. If the range of brightness values is wide, even a centered meter exposure may clip both ends of the histogram.

Good point, especially with high contrast scenes. This is why it is important to know when to use center vs. spot vs Matrix (on Nikon). Or take a reading of the critical subject matter and shoot manually at that setting so long as the lighting does not change.

--Ken

 

[AstroEd]

Still cliping my white birds 1.5 years later BUT I have come a long way, I shot these today.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

I think I have my clipping issues MOSTLY solved. After an annoying morning of settings and clipping issues I figured out ONE solution and as of yet for the rest of the day I did not have one single clipping issue (As long as I remembered to make the adjustment). I was striving to always get my exposure meter dead center and kept clipping or blowing out my highlights, but after several attempts today I figured out that if I adjust it so the exposure meter is 2-3 spots to the right of center my images do not clip and I can adjust to a more pleasing exposure in lightroom later. I am not sure if this is the right way but at the moment it is working. I am still struggling with which to adjust when and why between ISO, f/ratio, and shutter speed but I am sure I will figure that out once I understand Steves ebooks.

Select Highlight-weighted Exposure Metering (see Exposure Settings in the User Manual).

 

[NorthernFocus]

Glad you found something that's working for you. Nice position on the bird in the second image.

 

[Replytoken]

Still cliping my white birds 1.5 years later BUT I have come a long way, I shot these today.View attachment 60090
View attachment 60091

Lots of detail in the second photo. If it had some clipping, it appears to be minor. BTW, nice capture of the landing.

--Ken