Blow out lesson needed

[Bob Hullinger]

The RX10iv is a great camera. It is my wife's primary camera and I have one that I use for backup and as a video camera to go along with my D500.
Jeff

Yeah it is Jeff. I have mine sitting on my desk right now and it rides around in my car with me all the time. I bought mine because I thought the slow motion video was so cool. I shoot Nikon mirrorless now because I liked the RX10 so much. The RX10 was so great I decided to move up to an A7r with the 90mm Sony macro as a prime for right around $4000. The lens was so popular there was a long wait to get one and before one was available I found a refurbished Z7 at BH with a 24-70 for $2499. And here I am coming up on two years later and the RX10 is still current and amazing. I love Nikon stuff but if I hit a lottery someday the Sony camera store is gonna be my first stop.

 

[Bob Hullinger]

A couple of thoughts:

Yeah, in the image that started this thread Matrix Metering would tend to overexpose the image due to all the darker water tones filling the frame. But it's not that you '... missed your under exposure by a click or two...' it's that you missed proper exposure. IOW, exposing properly for a scene like that isn't 'under exposure' it's still correct exposure it's just that the meter is heavily influenced by all that dark area and if you don't compensate will end up over exposing the image.

Remember that exposure meters work on the assumption that the entire world has 18% reflectivity (mid tone) and since the camera doesn't know what kind of scene you're filling the frame with it will tend to over exposure largely dark scenes and under expose largely bright scenes (e.g. snow or bright sand). One way to think about the exposure compensation dial when shooting in an automated exposure mode is you're telling the camera that this particular scene is darker or brighter than mid-tone so you get the correct exposure or close to it. When shooting in spot metering mode you're basically telling the camera that the relatively small area under the metering spot (selected focus point) is brighter or darker than mid-tone and by how much so when spot metering the Egret's body you're telling the camera that you'd like those areas to be captured around 2 stops brighter than mid tone by dialing in roughly 2 stops of positive exposure compensation.

When you shoot raw a small embedded jpeg is also created, that's actually the image you see when you do an image review in the field right on the camera. The histogram and any highlight warnings (blinkies) you look at in the field are actually based on this embedded jpeg. So yeah, there can be a bit of difference between the histogram and blinkies for the embedded jpeg and the actual raw data with the raw data typically having a bit more exposure latitude. IOW, you can often get by with slightly brighter tones without hard clipping them in the raw file than what your blinkies or histogram might indicate for the embedded jpeg. But those differences are typically small as in a third to maybe half a stop or so. Basically checking exposure after a test shot in camera does use the embedded jpeg so it won't perfectly show you what the raw file sees but it gets you very close but sometimes, I'll accept a tiny bit of white clipping (tiny blinkie areas) in the field knowing I have a bit more exposure latitude when I process the raw files.

And of course the big issue with clipping highlights is losing important detail like in the wings of your all white Egret. But some clipping of specular highlights in areas without important detail like sparkles off of glass surfaces or sometimes small blown out tips of whitewater on a river or other things can be acceptable and help the image. So it's not like every clipped highlight kills an image, it's the clipping of areas that should retain detail that we're generally trying to avoid.

Hi. I practiced with the same bird, I think, at the same spot the next day. I shot the same U preset I used the day before so the exposure setting are cinsitent except that on this day I shot everything in highlight exposure mode. It's not perfect but the difference is I didn't clip anything and even without processing I can see details in the wings.

Another thing I changed that day was having blinking on and blow outs were obvious when I had them.

Next time the sun shines I will be back there shooting it with two changes. The first is I will use spot metering with the same preset.

The second change is that since I was out last I remembered that the display button brings up the EVF histogram that I never knew how to use before. The last couple of days I have been using is regularly with the EC on my control ring and other exposure settings. Not sure if smoothing is the right term but I have a feeling that learning to smooth out high and low and midtones in the histogram through the viewfinder is going to make me a lot better at this stuff. I can already see a rough example of "exposing to the right" and the benefit of it just from using EC, and the other settings, to slide the contours around on the histogram.

Next example I send will be with spot metering and using the EVF histogram to eliminate clipping and make the image cleaner.

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

Thanks everybody for the help and once again, keep it coming.

 

[DRwyoming]

Hi. I practiced with the same bird, I think, at the same spot the next day. I shot the same U preset I used the day before so the exposure setting are cinsitent except that on this day I shot everything in highlight exposure mode. It's not perfect but the difference is I didn't clip anything and even without processing I can see details in the wings.

Another thing I changed that day was having blinking on and blow outs were obvious when I had them.

Next time the sun shines I will be back there shooting it with two changes. The first is I will use spot metering with the same preset.

The second change is that since I was out last I remembered that the display button brings up the EVF histogram that I never knew how to use before. The last couple of days I have been using is regularly with the EC on my control ring and other exposure settings. Not sure if smoothing is the right term but I have a feeling that learning to smooth out high and low and midtones in the histogram through the viewfinder is going to make me a lot better at this stuff. I can already see a rough example of "exposing to the right" and the benefit of it just from using EC, and the other settings, to slide the contours around on the histogram.

Next example I send will be with spot metering and using the EVF histogram to eliminate clipping and make the image cleaner.

Sounds good, looks like you're exploring the available tools and learning to use them well.

If you haven't seen this or haven't seen it in a while I'd recommend watching @Steve's video on Spot Metering before your next outing. Spot metering can be great in a lot of slow moving situations but it's not magic and can really confuse folks if they don't understand its application and limitations.

This is another good one on exposure compensation in general that might have some good reminders:

 

[Bob Hullinger]

Nice, seems like you're moving in the right direction. Have you tried lowering the Highlights slider in processing to bring back some of the detail in the white wings?

I didn't mess with the highlight metered image yet. I messed around wih the original image from my first message and found that the hot spot on the wing was totally clipped. The highlight metered image histogram is clean with no clipping but still way the left. It's the best image of similar light on the back of it's wings I had for comparison purposes.

I do some comparison manipulation of all of them after I shoot the spot metered shots

I already know, since finding my EVF histogram on the display button and turning on blinkies, that my overall exposure setting process will improve greatly. I had been pretty much eyeball guesstimating everything from what I saw in the EVF before. Hopefully most of my close but no cigar shots will go away with a little practice.

I know that when I have all the data properly preserved that I can use post processing to manipulate images but the point now is to efficiently capture usable data. I am just using these white birds as training to learn to adjust the camera. If I can get the white end of the spectrum mastered I have a feeling that midtones and dark stuff will fall in to place much easier.

FYI, if I wanted to shoot that bird in flight with him facing me the biggest problem is that he is too close and whenever he flies he goes the other way One of you folks that know what you are doing could take my Z7 with either 70-200s on it and create masterworks of that bird. He is totally friendly. He probably wouldn't even fit in the frame of an 800 from where I shoot him. All the flight images of him so far are the butt shots of when he takes off and moves 20 or 30 yards down a 30 or 40 foot wide canal when he gets tired of me looking at him trying to catch fish. It's a great and easy place to shoot birds.

Thanks again.

 

[Whiskeyman]

I likely shouldn't post as I've just skimmed over the posts in this thread, but why let something like that stop me? In my quick reading, I don't believe I saw anyone recommend that you bracket your shots and take three- or five-shot bursts with either one- or two-stop bracketed exposures. With a moving subject, you can't usually merge the exposures to an HDR image, but multiple exposures at different settings may help you get exposures closer to what you want to do.