Panasonic G7 camera and the Zebra pattern aid

alcelc wrote:

Brisn5757 wrote:

alcelc wrote:

Brisn5757 wrote:

Thanks Stejo and CeciIT for your help.
It looks like I'll need some practice in using Zebra patterns.

Brian

I concur with Setjo's suggestion.

Beforehand, zebra (or real time histogram) is only upon jpg, so when a raw been taken according to zebra/histogram, it might have more headroom there to push in Post Processing.

Zebra looks like not 100% as expected from what the Manual said. So I think you should better test it out for your particular model.

I set zebra 1 to 105% on GX85. Theoretically any area covered by zebra strip should mean overblown of that area (>100% white saturate). However, in reality I found I can +2/3ev at the point of zebra stripes first appear before real highlight overblown happens. Equipping with that knowledge, exposure adjustment becomes simple that I can dial in +2/3ev Exposure Compensation (EC) whenever zebra stripes appear to Exposure To The Right (ETTR). Save a lot of time to do my setting with reference to histogram.

To find out how your G7 will act, you might:

1. watch live view,
2. set EC (+ or -ev) until zebra stripes appear,
3. if histogram does not suggest clip on the right yet, push EC more until the curve of histogram touch the right end,
4. play back that image and check the playback histogram again to confirm the overblown,
5. loaded the image onto computer and check with an image viewer software to confirm the overblown condition.

When you can get any consistent result between 3 and 4 above, it will be the headroom allowing us to push the exposure from first zebra stripes appears to real highlight overblown (pls understand there might be some more headroom for raw) of your particular camera.

I just use Zebra 1.

Hi Albert.

Just to understand you better...
You said " I can dial in +2/3ev Exposure Compensation (EC) whenever zebra stripes appear to Exposure To The Right (ETTR)" I thought you would decrease the exposure compensation when zebra strips appear with -2/3ev? What is ETTR?

ETTR = Exposure to the right. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right)

If -2/3ev, we are going to underexpose the image (don't forget that under center metering exposure my camera in reality is 2/3ev underexposed to protect highlight by default), so will produce a darker image, and be prepared for the increased noise. When we post processed it (to bring up the shadow) the noise would possibly be a lot worse that it should be.

I have not tried the histogram with this camera so I'll experiment with it soon.
I feel the main advantage of the zebra pattern over the histogram is that the zebra pattern shows you were the blowout occurs. If it's in the sky then in most cases I can ignore it as my subject on the ground is more important.

It is quite useful for SOOC jpg shooter like me. Before there is zebra, e.g. GX7 or earlier, I must do my setting according to the histogram, especially when in M mode.

Brian

Thanks Albert. A useful link.

Brian