The Outdated Fuss About Exposure

[Nikkor Shooter]

It was serious business, not a fuss. in film times but it is now!
With digital recording technologies, dynamic range latitudes
are so great that as long as you consider the histogram and
the EV button on your camera as your best friends at capture,
exposure is NO MORE the ultimate criteria but rendition is.

It hurts me painfully when ever I hear/read: "good" exposure",
"well exposed" etc. How can they know how it was exposed?

I say that it is not with the exposure that the mastery lies but
with the rendition of a capture.

What do you say?

[Frank Fremerey]

If you know how to capture photons right and develop your RAW to a pleasing result noone will have trouble with your choice.

An ISO invariant sensor might give you the chance to use a shorter exposure time to freeze motion and later pump up exposure in post processing.

As long as you know what you are doing, do as you know!

[JohnMM]

Beginners sometimes find this subject confusing since the word "exposure" is used to describe more than one thing. On the one hand it relates to the amount of light reaching the sensor, in which case it does not depend on ISO, and it cannot be changed in post processing. On the other hand it is used to described the "brightness" of the output. Here ISO and/or post processing are relevant.

[Frank Fremerey]

photographers capture details and tonality. I am not sure if tonality suffers if you pump up exposure in post...

[Nikkor Shooter]

Frank, John, thanks for your thoughts!

There are things that are relevant prior to SR, in post or both.
DR and tonalities, for example, can be affected both ways as
prior to SR, when neglected, they won't be available in post.

[pluton]

I say that it is not with the exposure that the mastery lies but
with the rendition of a capture.

What do you say?

I agree, unless the original exposure is far enough off that it fails to capture wanted detail, either in light or dark areas. It was different...more difficult... in the pre-2007 (Nikon D3) era.

[Erik Lund]

When I talk about Exposure watching an image; I talk about my perception of the light in the scene as presented; High to low.
Often very different for display and print,,,,
Some scenes present themselves nicely dark some high key, some HDR, some do well in several versions of that. It is completely up to the artist and then it's up to the 'customer' to judge if it is something they like to pay for.
Rendering is IMHO not only exposure it is also soft, hard, sharpness tonality etc.Some subjects or genres lend themselves to certain of these criteria.
Who is the customer,,, that is the question to ask yourself - If there is no direct 'customer' then there are now right answer to neither Exposure nor Rendering 

[Nikkor Shooter]

As a publishing photographer working mainly in the E6 spheres,
there was nothing else than exposure, it made it or it killed it.

Nothing else than exposure because after that it was either the
bin or the publisher's desk. This was the right time to make all
that fuss about exposure.

Today, exposure is only getting it in the ball park: the histogram.
— things are really getting interesting once up in the converter's
window. From the strict readout of the recorded data with trans-
lated dynamics to the most sophisticated PP, everything is possi-
ble IF the recorded quality is comfortably within the histogram.

[Wannabebetter]

  I still find myself unwittingly (no one ever accused me of having any wits) thinking in terms of reciprocity failure when it is gain x pixels I should be mindful of. Curiously enough, my images are generally well "exposed" if not subjectively dreadful. I have also come to appreciate that there were images I once produced in-the-box, utilizing classic media, that today I cannot reproduce digitally unaided by post-processing software before I would even think of showing my captures, much less producing prints.

[Ethan]

It was serious business, not a fuss. in film times but it is now!
With digital recording technologies, dynamic range latitudes
are so great that as long as you consider the histogram and
the EV button on your camera as your best friends at capture,
exposure is NO MORE the ultimate criteria but rendition is.

It hurts me painfully when ever I hear/read: "good" exposure",
"well exposed" etc. How can they know how it was exposed?

I say that it is not with the exposure that the mastery lies but
with the rendition of a capture.

What do you say?

Never used EV as it changes speed aperture ISO based on an algorithm. Just change it manually. And I very rarely bother to look at the Histogram whether in camera or monitor.

I hope you do realize that in camera histogram is a Jpeg rendition which is basically rubbish and I am yet to meet anyone who can read a histogram besides looking for blown bits.
If you wish to be anal about it, then invest in a Sony BVM RGB ref monitor and check the color ramp. Obviously the feed should not be RGB but component.
 But it would be a waste of money and time and a steep learning curve,

All modern cameras bake in Jpegs and more importantly bake in RAW as well. The alternative is to shoot FLAT RAW and process to your heart liking......which is not a technical issue related to the knowledge of the operator but a subjective issue to do with colour........and colour evaluation is not the same to all races and eye Photoreceptors. What a Caucasian person see is not the same as seen by another type of people.
Dark pupils withstand bright light better that light pupils same for colour....etc.
What a load of bull that blue is cold and red is hot. Go tell that in the lower hemisphere people.

Remember white clothes v black v red at funerals based on social location norms. Color is subjective and the scientific part does not take that into account.

It is a falacy, that we all see the same colour and appreciate the same colour. Same as taste.....smell....etc

So good Exposure......for whom?

[Nikkor Shooter]

Never used EV as it changes speed aperture ISO based on an algorithm.

No, it doesn't, Ethan, under the right setup, it will only
affect the metering and consequently the ISO.

I hope you do realize that in camera histogram is a Jpeg rendition which is basically rubbish and I am yet to meet anyone who can read a histogram besides looking for blown bits.

I can read an histogram but use it only to protect the whites.

[JohnMM]

No, it doesn't, Ethan, under the right setup, it will only
affect the metering… nothing else.
I can read an histogram but use it only to protect the whites.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "right setup" here. I shoot a Nikon D3300 in aperture priority mode. If I dial in +1 EV exposure compensation the shutter speed (exposure time) is doubled - as desired.

[Nikkor Shooter]

I'm not sure what you mean by the "right setup" here. I shoot a Nikon D3300 in aperture priority mode. If I dial in +1 EV exposure compensation the shutter speed (exposure time) is doubled - as desired.

I should have added "and the right body" cause they all don't share
the same menu nor the same features.

When I dial in a compensation value, aperture and speed stay as they
are, the ISO is taking it.

[JohnMM]

When I dial in a compensation value, aperture and speed stay as they
are, the ISO is taking it.

So you are controlling output brightness rather than the amount of light collected by the sensor ?

[Nikkor Shooter]

So you are controlling output brightness rather than the amount of light collected by the sensor ?

John, I don't follow you!

My approach means to control the amount of captured light
in order to have better data in the converter.