Forrest - A question on CCD lattitudes

Hi Forrest,

In another forum, you posted a reply that said:

Forrest said:

Whatever it takes to get a sharp photo, stick with it. Even if you
get very dark ( almost black ) photos, you can bring them up in
Photoshop ( or the editor of your choice ), and do a pretty good
job of it ( within a few stops ). But if they're blurred, there's
little you can do to fix that.

Click to expand...

Forrest, if you had to error on one side or another with a digital camera, would you error on the side of over-exposure or under-exposure? With negative film, it had a greater lattitude toward overexposure, whereas with slide film, it was better to error on the side of underexposure. What do you think the lattitude of digital camera CCD's are?

Thanks,
Bill

Bill,

I'm not Forrest, but that is easy to answer. Underexposure is better. Overexposure gives blown out highlights that are absolutely impossible to recover. Underexposure will result in more noise and require saturation and levels adjustment, but still a good part of the photo will be usable.

Holland

Bill Yuey said:

In another forum, you posted a reply that said:

Forrest said:

Whatever it takes to get a sharp photo, stick with it. Even if you
get very dark ( almost black ) photos, you can bring them up in
Photoshop ( or the editor of your choice ), and do a pretty good
job of it ( within a few stops ). But if they're blurred, there's
little you can do to fix that.

Click to expand...

Forrest, if you had to error on one side or another with a digital
camera, would you error on the side of over-exposure or
under-exposure? With negative film, it had a greater lattitude
toward overexposure, whereas with slide film, it was better to
error on the side of underexposure. What do you think the
lattitude of digital camera CCD's are?

Thanks,
Bill

Click to expand...

Thanks, Holland. I always value your insight.

Bill

MrPhoto said:

Thanks, Holland. I always value your insight.

Click to expand...

Holland is right. A CCD is a positave, like slide film. It handles under-exposure a lot more gracefully than over-exposure.

Color/brightness values range from 0 to 255. When you overexpose ( which is easier to do in every day shooting ), the CCD hits 255 and just stays there, no matter how much more light it gets. If all pixels are the same color ( pure white ) there's no contrast, and nothing you can do to fix it. When you under-expose ( except in the most sever cases ), pixels will have very low values, say one to twenty. Obviously these aren't the right values ... but there's a lot more you can do with them.

I shot a wedding the other weekend ... when I get around to fixing up some of the drastically under-exposed pictures, I'll post a before and after, and some info about fixing it ( green tints and such ).

Forrest said:

Forrest41926 said:

Thanks, Holland. I always value your insight.

Click to expand...

Holland is right. A CCD is a positave, like slide film. It
handles under-exposure a lot more gracefully than over-exposure.

Click to expand...

Got it, expose for the highlights. Thanks to both of you (Holland, Forrest).

Forrest, what did you use for a flash during the wedding?

Bill

MrPhoto said:

Got it, expose for the highlights. Thanks to both of you (Holland,
Forrest).

Click to expand...

Definately expose for the highlights, maybe add some underexposure ( I prefer -0.7 ) for good measure, and even try bracketing. This will preserve as much detail as possible, give you good contrast, and a side effect is nice dark blue skies.

MrPhoto said:

Forrest, what did you use for a flash during the wedding?

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Well, Jay had hired a professional photographer and videographer, so I came as a guest. The photos will be a gift ( when they're done with Photoshop ) and for my own practice, but without much pressure...

The wedding itself was outdoors, and I didn't have any trouble getting a good exposure. But the reception was indoors, and in the evening. Inside, I used the onboard flash in shutter-priority mode at 1/160 second. A lot of them were very dark, and need a good deal of PS work. Like I said, I'll post one of them before and after.

I think the pro was using a Vivitar or a Sunpak. He had a Nikon 35 mm SLR over one shoulder and a Canon 35 mm SLR on the other, and one flash between them. I asked his opinion of the new DSLRs, but he didn't think digital was acceptable for prints yet.