The point is from histogram I shall never know directly where exactly the overblown will happen. Before zebra I have to guess where is it, how large the overblown area will be and so must spend more time on the setting and do it on a more conservative manner ...
For my style of shooting, zebra has replaced the position of histogram. I still have histogram displayed on evf is because Zebra of Panny does not have shadow alert...
What is shadow alert good for?
Once you have maximized the exposure without clipping, the noise in shadows is what it is, there is no alternative.
Sometimes it is useful too.
Lower exposure van increase the saturation. I shall use -1/3ev very often on flower shooting for the color effect. For certain reasons we might also try to reduce the exposure for lower contrast or a darker output. For Sunset shooting I shall use -ev a lot.
Unless protecting highlights (e.g., sunset, red flowers), underexposure is always a bad idea in digital photography when shooting raw. You can always reduce the brightness in the post and get the same effect. Since the camera's sensors operate in their linear range only, the saturation effect should be the same.
I am trying to avoid shooting RAW, nor over reliance on editing in PP nowadays
.
I was there before and changed before becoming a digital image painter.
I always asked myself, as long as if I can get the result on more careful setting, why just take a shot on ETTR, manipulate it for similar result afterward?
e.g. the following was a SOOC JPG taken on -0.33ev. The reason I use -0.33ev was because it could bring up the very pale purple color of the flower. Too much would turn the deeper purple color of the stamens into nearly black color. At 0ev or if I would push more, the flower would turn white.
As I can get it through -0.3ev, why I have to take a RAW at 0ev, darken the flower (on local basis with a mask to protect the stamens) on conversion to bring back the color for similar effect? Indeed the -0.3ev could also produce a darker background to emphasis on the flower. If I use 0ev or higher exposure, would need to darken the background too on conversion or editing in pp.
I even took the following at -1.33ev to amplify on the purple color to my taste too. I don't think RAW at 0ev or higher exposure then edit it would give me more.
Therefore all over the zebra discussion here, I use it for the shot which requiring optimal exposure only. It is not a holy grail, and is totally case dependent IMHO.
When we ate intentionally looking for lower exposure, the shadow alert will be very useful to avoid too much underexposure.
This is not only important to SOOC shooting. Having completely black sector will be bad as having white saturated area.
At least with raw files, there is never "black clipping" in the shadows. Instead, the shadow detail gradually gets
overwhelmed by noise. The shadow detail can often be recovered in post.
While it is recoverable, usable or not is the concern. Better software might handle it better, however there is always a limit. Again if we can nail it through setting on shooting, why must leave room to do it on conversion/pp?
No matter it would be on RAW or SOOC JPG, there must be a balance (compromise) on the setting for the shadow as well as highlight. IMHO this is exactly where the decision of we have to do to determine how good an image to start with (RAW for less editing in post) or as an end result (SOOC JPG).
My 2 cents.
The shadow clipping does not tell us how much detail is still visible, as the noise depends on the selected exposure/scene light. Shadow clipping at ISO 100 may still be able to show a lot of detail, while shadow clipping at ISO 6400 may cause too much detail to be lost.
P.S.: I am aware that everybody has his own workflow that gives them good results.
--
Albert
** Please forgive my typo error.
** Please feel free to download my image and edit it as you like
**
