Are Histograms Fundamentally Useful At All?

Through my days experimenting with different types of photography (mostly pure art), I have found the histogram pretty much useless.

I am not a beginner, but since I started learning photography I felt that knowing the highlights and shadows that have no detail is completely unnecessary. Pure black & pure white play an important role in my photos, and what I see on camera is exactly the same as I see on the monitor. There is no situation when the photo is blown out on monitor and not on camera.

Seriously, what do you use the histogram for in-camera?

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"You must strive to find your own voice, 'cause the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all." —— Dead Poets Society

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms2.htm

Um......

Firstly, I could determine whether I have the exposure right or not for the scenario without a histogram.

Secondly, everything (about colors) is adjustable in post as long as I have the details captured.

That didn't convince me......

Hunter_C said:

Um......

Firstly, I could determine whether I have the exposure right or not for the scenario without a histogram.

Secondly, everything (about colors) is adjustable in post as long as I have the details captured.

That didn't convince me......

Click to expand...

They give you a true indication of how close you are to clipping the highlights. Once the highlights are clipped there no way to recover them so you can'y adjust.

If you are underexposing enough to be sure you're not clipping highlights you are reducing the available dynamic range significantly.

Perhaps they are not essential, but they are a VERY useful tool.

Hunter_C said:

Um......

Firstly, I could determine whether I have the exposure right or not for the scenario without a histogram.

Secondly, everything (about colors) is adjustable in post as long as I have the details captured.

That didn't convince me......

Click to expand...

Well, if you really don't want to use them, don't.

They are not essential, but many of us find them very useful. They are just a mathematical/statistical tool to use as an aid to analysing and summarising some aspects of large data sets.

They are very widely used outside photography also. You find them used almost anywhere there are large data sets.

Well.

Probably I'm the kind of person that doesn't need a histogram.

Is it related to what I shoot?

I shoot macro.

Are there genres of photography where a histogram is more useful or even essencial?

petrochemist said:

Hunter_C said:

Um......

Firstly, I could determine whether I have the exposure right or not for the scenario without a histogram.

Secondly, everything (about colors) is adjustable in post as long as I have the details captured.

That didn't convince me......

Click to expand...

They give you a true indication of how close you are to clipping the highlights. Once the highlights are clipped there no way to recover them so you can'y adjust.

Click to expand...

The thing is, I never clip the highlights that need to be recovered. NEVER.

petrochemist said:

If you are underexposing enough to be sure you're not clipping highlights you are reducing the available dynamic range significantly.

Click to expand...

In this case, I use HDR stacking.

Well, I determine how many highlights I am clipping by looking at the amount of detail revealed. Simple.

petrochemist said:

Perhaps they are not essential, but they are a VERY useful tool.

Click to expand...

Probably.

Hunter_C said:

Well.

Probably I'm the kind of person that doesn't need a histogram.

Is it related to what I shoot?

I shoot macro.

Click to expand...

In macro-photography you often have plenty of time and can use other techniques for getting the best exposure.

Hunter_C said:

Are there genres of photography where a histogram is more useful or even essencial?

Click to expand...

I use the histogram as a very quick means of judging how close I am to optimum exposure. I often use the ETTR exposure technique and then use both histograms and blinkies to judge how close I am to the optimum.

Hunter_C said:

what I see on camera is exactly the same as I see on the monitor. There is no situation when the photo is blown out on monitor and not on camera.

Click to expand...

That has not been my experience. I do not trust what I see on the camera's LCD. You do, so fine for you. Simply different histories.

Kelly Cook

KCook said:

KCook said:

what I see on camera is exactly the same as I see on the monitor. There is no situation when the photo is blown out on monitor and not on camera.

Click to expand...

That has not been my experience. I do not trust what I see on the camera's LCD. You do, so fine for you. Simply different histories.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about shooting raw?

I can't see any reason why jpegs from the camera would appear blown on one and not the other. On the other hand, the camera's jpeg image may be blown, while the raw file is not. That happens quite frequently in my experience.

Tom Axford said:

KCook said:

Tom Axford said:

what I see on camera is exactly the same as I see on the monitor. There is no situation when the photo is blown out on monitor and not on camera.

Click to expand...

That has not been my experience. I do not trust what I see on the camera's LCD. You do, so fine for you. Simply different histories.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about shooting raw?

I can't see any reason why jpegs from the camera would appear blown on one and not the other. On the other hand, the camera's jpeg image may be blown, while the raw file is not. That happens quite frequently in my experience.

Click to expand...

I always shoot RAW. My issue with the LCD is not the different DR for JPG vs RAW, but the un-calibrated nature of LCD brightness (which can be changed) vs ambient light (which is highly variable). If I shot every thing in the same room, with strictly controlled lighting for that room, then I would trust the LCD.

Kelly

I hardly ever look at them. If the lighting is contrasty I simply bracket and sort everything out later in Lightroom. I often see people examine images on a camera after the shutter has fired and just consider that a waste of time. If you have confidence in your ability and know your gear you should get consistently good results.

My experience is that the camera's screen, coupled with variations in ambient light brightness and colour, screen brightness, viewing angle, and jpeg profile settings, cannot be relied upon to give an accurate impression of what is captured. So the histograms are very useful in giving a more objective view.

Most cameras allow the screen to be set to different brightness levels - all of which distort the tonal scale in different ways. Likewise, our own perception changes in different ambient light conditions. Viewing the same image on the same screen in different light levels, most people will make different decisions about what looks 'right'. It's the same with colour.

If you can't get a straight-on view of the screen due to obstructions/awkward shooting position, that will also change your impression of the image.

The histograms bypass all these variations and give you fairly objective information about colour balance, highlights, shadows and (for example), skin tones.

So for me, at least the histograms are extremely useful. If you don't need them, great! Keep doing what you're doing.

I would like a clarification, since it might inform the answer. You mention in the beginning you photograph "pure art". Do you mean you photograph paintings/sculptures or that your images are "pure art".

I think the answer to your question is entirely dependent and different whether the former or the latter.

They are only useful to those that understand them and know how to use them. They BECOME useful to those that want to figure out how to use them. The rest? They live totally fine without them never knowing what they are missing and produce images that satisfy them and their individual needs.

The total number of photographers using them in everyday photographic practice? Probably less than 1%.

In many natural scenes, there is only a small area, such as the metalwork on a car, or a white PVC window frame, where clipping is a problem. But I still don't want blank white patches in the image. Not even small ones.

Such areas are shown in the histogram as an invisibly thin line along the bottom right -- maybe one pixel high on the LCD or EVF. So the histogram is no use.

The problem is that a linear scale is used for the Y axis, If some kind of logarithmic scale was available as an option, the clipped areas would be visible on the histogram. As it is, zebras are probably better.

Michael Vinther's free program "Image Analyzer" which offers a square root function for the histogram's Y axis under the menu item "Color Mapper", shows what I mean.

http://meesoft.com/