a6000 zebra

Hi,

can someone explain what the different percentages when configuring zebra patterns mean?

Regards

Alex

Basically when the camera detects a certain area is "overexposed" or "underexposed" it does the zebra black/white thing.

The percentage indicates how much overexposure/underexposure before it does the zebra.

In JPG terms, say you have a sky with brightness from 247-254. At 90% zebra, in theory it would highlight the entire sky. Even though technically its not "blown".. since its not straight 255s all the way across, its pretty close to blown. So the zebra would show.

But at 100% zebra, it would NOT highlight that theoretical sky since its not actually blown out.

A 70% zebra for example would be pretty whiney and gripe about any fairly dark or fairly light area.

A 100% zebra would theortecially only gripe about truly overexposed values.

The 100%+ means it only gripes about beyond-overexposed. A 255 in JPG brightness can correspond to say 4084-4096 in 12bit RAW. So a good raw converter can recover even 100% blown highlights from a JPG point of view.

In reality the zebra seems to be more conservative than what ive described. Even with 100%+ settings it still gripes about non-blown out areas. So I'd set it at 100%+ to minimize griping (which trains you to ignore it) but still provide a useful warning.

Joseph Mama said:

Basically when the camera detects a certain area is "overexposed" or "underexposed" it does the zebra black/white thing.

The percentage indicates how much overexposure/underexposure before it does the zebra.

In JPG terms, say you have a sky with brightness from 247-254. At 90% zebra, in theory it would highlight the entire sky. Even though technically its not "blown".. since its not straight 255s all the way across, its pretty close to blown. So the zebra would show.

But at 100% zebra, it would NOT highlight that theoretical sky since its not actually blown out.

A 70% zebra for example would be pretty whiney and gripe about any fairly dark or fairly light area.

A 100% zebra would theortecially only gripe about truly overexposed values.

The 100%+ means it only gripes about beyond-overexposed. A 255 in JPG brightness can correspond to say 4084-4096 in 12bit RAW. So a good raw converter can recover even 100% blown highlights from a JPG point of view.

In reality the zebra seems to be more conservative than what ive described. Even with 100%+ settings it still gripes about non-blown out areas. So I'd set it at 100%+ to minimize griping (which trains you to ignore it) but still provide a useful warning.

Click to expand...

Zebra pattern is only shown on overexposed areas, just small correction.

Joseph Mama said:

Basically when the camera detects a certain area is "overexposed" or "underexposed" it does the zebra black/white thing.

The percentage indicates how much overexposure/underexposure before it does the zebra.

In JPG terms, say you have a sky with brightness from 247-254. At 90% zebra, in theory it would highlight the entire sky. Even though technically its not "blown".. since its not straight 255s all the way across, its pretty close to blown. So the zebra would show.

But at 100% zebra, it would NOT highlight that theoretical sky since its not actually blown out.

A 70% zebra for example would be pretty whiney and gripe about any fairly dark or fairly light area.

A 100% zebra would theortecially only gripe about truly overexposed values.

The 100%+ means it only gripes about beyond-overexposed. A 255 in JPG brightness can correspond to say 4084-4096 in 12bit RAW. So a good raw converter can recover even 100% blown highlights from a JPG point of view.

In reality the zebra seems to be more conservative than what ive described. Even with 100%+ settings it still gripes about non-blown out areas. So I'd set it at 100%+ to minimize griping (which trains you to ignore it) but still provide a useful warning.

Click to expand...

The question is what a photographer should do if sees the zebra black and white thing assuming the zebra is set 100%+? Can anyone explain it?

ckeek said:

ckeek said:

The question is what a photographer should do if sees the zebra black and white thing assuming the zebra is set 100%+? Can anyone explain it?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

If the brightest parts of the scene you are photographing is blown out - it is all white without detail - then you should consider decreasing the exposure - faster shutter speed, larger f-stop #, or using exposure compensation - to let less light into the camera and onto the sensor.

But if the scene goes from very dark to very light you might have to make a choice to blow out the highlights to keep detail in the dark shadows. So it's not an always kind of thing.

If they're specular highlights then yes (but you wouldn't be able to see the zebra!). Otherwise, I'd prefer to preserve the highlights and put up with dark shadows. In my experience on the NEX-6 you can pull shadows around 3 stops in Lightroom 5 before they become a mess, whereas a blown highlight is just lost. Of course, for preference I'd bracket in that situation.

Cheers,

Chris.

Thanks for the detailed answer.. but I am not sure I understand it

is at 70% the highlight blown out or not? at 100%?

Regards

Alex

Joseph Mama said:

Basically when the camera detects a certain area is "overexposed" or "underexposed" it does the zebra black/white thing.

The percentage indicates how much overexposure/underexposure before it does the zebra.

In JPG terms, say you have a sky with brightness from 247-254. At 90% zebra, in theory it would highlight the entire sky. Even though technically its not "blown".. since its not straight 255s all the way across, its pretty close to blown. So the zebra would show.

But at 100% zebra, it would NOT highlight that theoretical sky since its not actually blown out.

A 70% zebra for example would be pretty whiney and gripe about any fairly dark or fairly light area.

A 100% zebra would theortecially only gripe about truly overexposed values.

The 100%+ means it only gripes about beyond-overexposed. A 255 in JPG brightness can correspond to say 4084-4096 in 12bit RAW. So a good raw converter can recover even 100% blown highlights from a JPG point of view.

In reality the zebra seems to be more conservative than what ive described. Even with 100%+ settings it still gripes about non-blown out areas. So I'd set it at 100%+ to minimize griping (which trains you to ignore it) but still provide a useful warning.

Click to expand...

In realty not every subject is brighter or darker. For example, the camera is focusing people or building but you may see the nearby tree leaves are bright. Under this situation, should you adjust the exposure or not?

At 70% zebra, the camera will show zebra patterns over areas that are almost overexposed, but not totally blown out. Its a warning that is telling you "dude... watch out for this area cuz its pretty close to max brightness". I would presume anything at 70% of max brightness would trigger the zebra.

At 100%, in theory at least it should only show zebra pattern on any area that is totally blown out (on a 0-255 brightness scale, its a field of 255s).

As stated earlier, a RAW file has a bigger brightness scale (0-4095), so even at 100% zebra, you can still recover highlights...they arent really blown yet.

Thats why they have a 100+% setting, for when the camera is pretty sure that there ain't no way you gonna recover that white area.

Set to 100 zebra and shoot in raw. 100 is still easy to recover from sony RAW.

Dervast said:

Hi,

can someone explain what the different percentages when configuring zebra patterns mean?

Regards

Alex

--
“The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don’t know what to do with it”
(written at 1927 by Edward Weston)

Click to expand...

Those percentages are just at what level of brightness it's going to show you zebra patterns. I use 100+ cause I only want recoverable highlights. Depending on the location of the zebra I can adjust accordingly if my iso is already the lowest.

1. Is my ISO lowest? No, lower the ISO. ISO is the baseline I start with, but you know people are different. Sensitivity to light is only important in lower light, and I want all my details.

2. Shutter toys with ambient light, so if the zebras are out there in the background I'll lower/raise the shutter.

3. Subject zebras I change the aperture.

4. If I am using flash and I have set everything to the proper ambient and available lighting, i then turn on my flash and adjust the power until it's lighting how I like it without zebras.

That's how I use it. I really like the zebra addition.