Is my Z9 histogram RAW?

[iSequoia]

When I compare the in camera histogram of a RAW image and the same image in Natural Raw .jpg it looks more like the .jpg.
When I look at the histogram in camera or in LR versus what I see in RawDigger it looks like there is more headroom in the Z9 than is shown in it’s histogram.
Am I missing something (besides a bit of DR)? Is this related to ETTR?
Thanks in advance,
-John

 

[Cameron T]

No. It's from a jpg preview. You are correct you usually have more headroom (I estimate about a stop for general purpose shooting).

 

[iSequoia]

Even in LR or PS?

 

[John Navitsky]

i think this video does a good job explaining the nuances of in-camera histograms:

 

[John Navitsky]

Even in LR or PS?

the LR histogram will reflect whatever settings you have selected (sharpening, highlights, shadows, etc.). so unless you select a completely flat profile, it's still not reflecting exactly what is "in the file".

 

[bleirer]

It can be good to know how to keep your exposure from being blown out in the important highlights. On my Canon I did enough testing to know for the profile I use what the histogram looked like when the highlights were blown. The way I did it was to use the blinkies and a series of exposures to find out that I could add 2/3 stop to my highest non blinkie shot and still not be blown out. I used rawdigger but lightroom would work too. Then I memorized what the histogram looked like at that point. Slightly climbing the right wall was still fine, but not beyond.

The reason I like blinkies better is that you might not care if certain parts are blown. With the histogram there is no way to tell what part is blown. Sometimes the histogram is climbing the right wall because of some specular highlight that you don't care about, or something that can be easily excluded.