On 20 May 2005 at 19:23, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Ken, > In Don's image the whitest whites are very close to pure white and approaching > overexposure. You can see them in the histogram as well. Because they are > such a > minor part of the image, they're only represented by the narrow line running > across the bottom. With more exposure they would have been off the scale. This > is a correct exposure for RAW. If he were shooting jpegs, the camera probably > would have compensated with more brightness and a bit more exposure. But since > he was shooting RAW, the meter cut things off at the point where the > highlights > wouldn't be clipped. Of course the midtones are all pushed down in the scale > and > have to be brightened. But that's the nature of RAW images. They are different > than jpegs. That's the point. They give the photographer control. The first > priority with RAW is don't clip the highlights on exposure. The midtones will > frequently look underexposed. Don also needs to pull the shadows up a bit to > get > them off the far left just a tad. Once the midtones are brightened and the > shadows adjusted, the image will probably need some contrast tweaking to > separate the highs and lows a bit. But the exposure is correct.
This is a great explanation Paul. Essentially RAW files contain all the data, the data has to be developed in the RAW convertor in order to resemble a slide or print or in camera jpg file. I think the *ist Ds matrix metering generally does a fine job of preserving important highlight detail and balancing the exposure. My hand held meters (incident/reflected) don't work nearly as effectively under scenes with great D range as the integrated metering. Film photographers really have to get out of the digital to film comparison trap, there is no direct comparison, digital RAW capture a different media with different strengths. Also if anyone thinks that in camera JPG can deliver anything near the quality of PCR converter RAW images then they should invest a bit more time in learning how to convert file and stop stressing about exposure and metering. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
