What does "over-exposed" mean to a foveonista savant?

Been a lot of talk lately involving ISO, exposure compensation, ETTR, ad nauseam.

My thought is that "over-exposed" might mean different things to different folks.

My question is asked with no assumption of context and with no qualifying additions.

Please feel free to post comments that support your vote, or post a comment anyway!

Thanks for looking!

When the X3F carries an exposure that exceeds the SPP correction capabilities.

Or:

To be out of the optimal area as defined by the Evil Couple Foveon + SPP

--
JLS

Could not have said it better myself.

xpatUSA said:

xpatUSA wrote: My thought is that "over-exposed" might mean different things to different folks.

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You might need to click on the image to get the full benefits!





--
Zone8: Although I am a handsome genius, when I stand in front of a mirror, I vaguely recognise the ugly idjit standing on the other side!
LINK: For B+W with Epson 1400 (and other models) using black ink only PLUS other useful tips:
Cleaning DSLR Sensors, including Kodak DSLR Factory Cleaning method:
http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/KodakDCS-sensorcleaning.htm (Includes links to "bassotto's" images)
Solving back/front focus problems on Sigma and most other DSLRs
PDF format list of lenses you can print or download - covers Italian Flag YES/NO for DCS 14n but applies to others. http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/ItiFlagLensList.pdf

Ted, I think that over-exposed means that the image looks like it should have been exposed less, when you look at it on a computer screen, in a normal viewing situation, after the photo is shot, but before the exposure is adjusted. In other words, I think an image is over-exposed if what was mean to be produced/captured is an image that is exposed less than or appears to be exposed less than what the image looks like on the screen, before any adjustments have been made to it.

Now, of course, the screen brightness affects the observation and subsequent critiques. So does the room brightness. For example, when I view photos on my screen at night, but I have the lights turned off in the room, if I don't turn down the brightness of my screen, I end up with photos that look under-exposed when I view them in more normal viewing situations later. Therefore, if I'm viewing an image before adjustment, and it's at night and the lights in the room are off, the photo might look over-exposed just because I have not turned the brightness down on my screen.

In other words, it's relative AND subjective.

I hope this has helped you in whatever understanding you hope to achieve Ted.

Scottelly said:

Ted, I think that over-exposed means that the image looks like it should have been exposed less, when you look at it on a computer screen, in a normal viewing situation, after the photo is shot, but before the exposure is adjusted. In other words, I think an image is over-exposed if what was mean to be produced/captured is an image that is exposed less than or appears to be exposed less than what the image looks like on the screen, before any adjustments have been made to it.

Now, of course, the screen brightness affects the observation and subsequent critiques. So does the room brightness. For example, when I view photos on my screen at night, but I have the lights turned off in the room, if I don't turn down the brightness of my screen, I end up with photos that look under-exposed when I view them in more normal viewing situations later. Therefore, if I'm viewing an image before adjustment, and it's at night and the lights in the room are off, the photo might look over-exposed just because I have not turned the brightness down on my screen.

In other words, it's relative AND subjective.

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Thanks, Scott, that certainly seems to cover it. It looks like you see "over-exposed" in the context of the review image prior to adjustments.

Scottelly said:

I hope this has helped you in whatever understanding you hope to achieve Ted.

Click to expand...

My own understanding is quite clear but I'm trying to get a forum consensus by using a poll.

Savant ?..........not sure I'd consider myself a savant, but.....

Over exposure means, to me, any image in which the highlights cannot be recovered in PP.

By "recovered" I mean with proper/actual/acceptable/pleasing detail & color.

a gift that can come in handy, and at just the right moment

There is really no such thing as over-exposed or under-exposed. What there is, is correctly exposed. By that is meant: Correctly in terms of how the image was pre-visualized during the creative part of the process. Accurate exposure is another term used often in reference to taking care with all of the highlight and shadow areas. However, there are plenty of so-called masterful images which are "over-exposed" or "under-exposed" because that was the photographer wanted.

Of course, there will be lots of arguments about a device not being fast enough to handle this bit of weirdness, but that is another argument. There are plenty of alpine skiing photographers who still are able to think like this using that masterful Nikon to stop exceptionally fast downhill skiers.

xpatUSA said:

Been a lot of talk lately involving ISO, exposure compensation, ETTR, ad nauseam.

My thought is that "over-exposed" might mean different things to different folks.

My question is asked with no assumption of context and with no qualifying additions.

Please feel free to post comments that support your vote, or post a comment anyway!

Click to expand...

Laurence Matson said:

There is really no such thing as over-exposed or under-exposed. What there is, is correctly exposed.

Click to expand...

(My bold) You took the word right from my mouth, Laurence.

Laurence Matson said:

Laurence Matson said:

xpatUSA wrote just yesterday:

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Laurence Matson said:

Laurence Matson said:

All this talk in this thread is too simplistic by far. Hopefully someone soon will mention the scene content as being a major factor and that mostly it boils down to using the correct exposure for the scene, as opposed to ETTR, ETTL, ETTM or EWTF. (my bold).

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"this thread" was http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55989002

--
Pedantry is not a felony.
Ted

Scott

That seems an odd definition to me.

Let's take an example: I'm photographing something dark, say a piece of coal. According to your definition, correct exposure would be to have something that looks dark, like a piece of coal out of camera without doing any adjustments.

Yet, ETTR tells you that would be the worst way to expose the coal if you value image quality.

What you should do is deliberately overexpose to force the exposure as much to the right of the histogram as possible without actually reaching the right. The result would be light grey coal rather than dark coal in your unprocessed out of camera state. But you would then pull back the exposure slider in SPP to map the tone to correct dark look.

By doing this you end up with something that looks exactly the same as your "correct" exposure - except it has 3 or 4 stops less noise and greater tonal subtlety.

With digital cameras, the critical thing to watch is that you don't blow (important) tones whilst always giving the maximum in camera exposure you can get away with. Sensors love light and the half of the tonal levels are mapped to the brightest stop of the dynamic range. That means expose as hot as you dare and don't worry about what it looks like before processing.

xpatUSA said:

Scottelly said:

Ted, I think that over-exposed means that the image looks like it should have been exposed less, when you look at it on a computer screen, in a normal viewing situation, after the photo is shot, but before the exposure is adjusted. In other words, I think an image is over-exposed if what was mean to be produced/captured is an image that is exposed less than or appears to be exposed less than what the image looks like on the screen, before any adjustments have been made to it.

Now, of course, the screen brightness affects the observation and subsequent critiques. So does the room brightness. For example, when I view photos on my screen at night, but I have the lights turned off in the room, if I don't turn down the brightness of my screen, I end up with photos that look under-exposed when I view them in more normal viewing situations later. Therefore, if I'm viewing an image before adjustment, and it's at night and the lights in the room are off, the photo might look over-exposed just because I have not turned the brightness down on my screen.

In other words, it's relative AND subjective.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Scott, that certainly seems to cover it. It looks like you see "over-exposed" in the context of the review image prior to adjustments.

xpatUSA said:

I hope this has helped you in whatever understanding you hope to achieve Ted.

Click to expand...

My own understanding is quite clear but I'm trying to get a forum consensus by using a poll.

Click to expand...

DMiller,

Perfect response. It shocks me that anybody these days would still argue about the merit of ETTR and confuse post-processed rendering, which is subjective and relative, with optimal exposure, which is a matter of physics and bits, and therefore not in the least subjective or relative. For people who use phone-cams and shoot jpg, I can understand if they are confused or ignorant. But for people who claim to shoot raw, especially on a narrow band sensor like the Foveon? I am mindboggled.

xpatUSA said:

Laurence Matson said:

There is really no such thing as over-exposed or under-exposed. What there is, is correctly exposed.

Click to expand...

(My bold) You took the word right from my mouth, Laurence.

Click to expand...

I suppose if there is no such thing as "over exposed" that the thread/topic is moot, and probably should be deleted.

alcc said:

But for people who claim to shoot raw, especially on a narrow band sensor like the Foveon? I am mindboggled.

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Narrow? I'm a bit mind-boggled myself ;-)



Each Foveon layer appears to just about respond to the entire CIE human visual range (380-700nm), so how about broad-band, not narrow-band?

--
Pedantry is not a felony.
Ted

Mike Gerstner said:

xpatUSA said:

Laurence Matson said:

There is really no such thing as over-exposed or under-exposed. What there is, is correctly exposed.

Click to expand...

(My bold) You took the word right from my mouth, Laurence.

Click to expand...

I suppose if there is no such thing as "over exposed" that the thread/topic is moot, and probably should be deleted.

Click to expand...

An excellent attempt to hoist me with my own petard, Mike. :-D

But no humble pie today; the purpose of this thread was made pretty clear here, I thought:

J. Michael said:

J. Michael said:

Scottelly said:

I hope this has helped you in whatever understanding you hope to achieve Ted.

Click to expand...

xpatUSA wrote:

My own understanding is quite clear but I'm trying to get a forum consensus by using a poll.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

This image is over-exposed at the top left. Even the minus 2 setting of the exposure slider in SPP doesn't recover the clipped patches.

The only remedy here is to crop off the top strip.





Most over-exposed shots are of red or yellow flowers. Buttercups are particularly difficult.

Thanks for the excellent example of your view of "over-exposed".

D Cox said:

Most over-exposed shots are of red or yellow flowers. Buttercups are particularly difficult.

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Here we digress, I think. Flower shots suffer during the conversion process due to color saturation rather than over-exposure.

xpatUSA said:

An excellent attempt to hoist me with my own petard, Mike. :-D

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I laughed out loud, a great way to start the day!

Thanks

D Cox said:

D Cox wrote: This image is over-exposed at the top left. Even the minus 2 setting of the exposure slider in SPP doesn't recover the clipped patches. The only remedy here is to crop off the top strip.

Click to expand...

I don't have the RAW file but you would find if you use the + Fill-Light slider you could pretty much recover all of that area as it will recover the highlights whilst changing the shadows and midtones. With Lightroom, you can recover most of the highlight area balancing Fill-Light and Recovery, even on the existing JPEG file although as mentioned, working in SPP with the RAW file is superior. Here's a quickfix via Lightroom.





Only a quick trial but should help.

--
Zone8: Although I am a handsome genius, when I stand in front of a mirror, I vaguely recognise the ugly idjit standing on the other side!
LINK: For B+W with Epson 1400 (and other models) using black ink only PLUS other useful tips:
http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/epson1400-B&W.htm
Cleaning DSLR Sensors, including Kodak DSLR Factory Cleaning method:
http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/KodakDCS-sensorcleaning.htm (Includes links to "bassotto's" images)
Solving back/front focus problems on Sigma and most other DSLRs
http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/backfocus.htm
PDF format list of lenses you can print or download - covers Italian Flag YES/NO for DCS 14n but applies to others. http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS/ItiFlagLensList.pdf

I got my RAW file captured

And it just made me sore

Because instead of f16

I’d shot it at f4

That means I got it wrong like

And should have chucked it out

So now, just like that spider

I’m really up the spout!

Next time that I go shooting

I’ll try to stop and think

And if I get it wrong again

I’ll chuck myself in the drink!