Overexposing V Underexposing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

These are 2 ref that explain why and how you can avoid noise in shadows

That said the Fuji X's produce very little noise anyway

So nowadays this applies for the few shots where deep shadows are important

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Good judgment comes from experience
Experience comes from bad judgment