Expose to the right?

I've heard this many times but never experimented with it. Then I was watching the latest Michael Reichmann / Jeff Schewe Lightroom 2 tutorial. In it, Jeff took a shot of Niagra Falls (at least it was a waterfall) that was absolutely clipped white. He was able to bring it back from the dead and make a printable picture out of it in Lightroom (essentially ACR 4.5). The fact that he used a 1Ds MkII didn't hurt, I'm sure. He then brought up the "expose to the right" issue again. Since Michael Reichmann is mainly a landscape shooter, I'm thinking it may have an application in my nature shots.

After all the mantra of "Get it right in the camera", this seems counter-intuitive to me but I think I'll experiment with it. Any thoughts? If you do this, how many stops?

I didn't have adequate ACR skills to use the shoot-to-the-right method until I took one of Tim Ernst's workshops. Since then it's been part of my SOP.

It's not a matter of a certain number of stops. Rather, the basic approach is to place your histogram so that its right edge is all the way to the right.

Hi Mike,

First keep in mind, I'm far from an expert on this, and maybe even barely qualified to give any advice. So I will just say that "in my experience" when I take a shot, and most shots actually, I'm usually in a low light situation. Early morning, late evening, low light non the less. At standard exposure (0.00) and say evaluative metering. I usually end up with a histogram that is exposed to the left, (on the dark side). Having read some of the same info you have mentioned about exposing to the right, I will subsequently adjust my exposure as necessary to get my histogram to the right completely withing view where non is even touching the left of the window, and usually end up with it fairly well centered if possible.
Having done this, I have found that when I bring the image into photoshop and go thru my standard workflow which includes a levels adjustment, I have a much more adjustable image being able to at that time adjust my setting to have the histogram virtually fill the window. This to me gives much more deeper darks and lighter lights without blowing anything out in the process.
I hope I have made some kind of sense. The bottom line to me is that keeping my histogram off the left side and more to the right does result in a better post processed image.
Thanks Mike for bring up an important subject, I'm curious to hear others opinion as well.
Take care.

Brad

I've been using and teaching ETTR for many years. It was a necessity in digital cameras - especially Canons - up until just recently. Some of the newer models don't require it as much, although this is probably due to ACR getting better and better all the time. Also 14 or 16 bit captures help a lot too! The main issue is not really getting more out of your highlights, but rather getting some actual data in shadows - with normal exposures you often have very little data in the shadows, and where there is no data there is noise. ETTR allows you to capture a LOT more detail in the shadows, and that pretty much takes care of shadow noise for all but really dark exposures (like five or ten minutes). I've never used a noise-removing program or plugin (they will soften the entire image and I prefer sharper images - the key is simply to exposure so that you doni't get any noise in the first place).

I continue to laugh whenever folks talk about different metering methods and exposure compensation values - good grief, just take a photo and then use the histogram to ETTR and you will have a perfect exposure - it makes NO DIFFERENCE what metering method you use (spot, evaluative, or otherwise), or what compensation you set your camera at. I don't have a clue what exposure method my cameras are set at - I've not bothered with that in many, many years. And I don't ever touch that ev stuff either - I guess mine is set at 0, but it really wouldn't matter - I just take an exposure and then adjust manually according to the histo until it is right. Of course, this is all for subjects that don't move around too much - if shooting wildlife or people then all that other stuff may come into play. But for rocks and waterfalls it is all a waste of time...

Mike, what Tim E. taught me was that exactly 1/2 of all the data information resides in the rightmost of the five segments on the histogram (I shoot Canon). Exactly 1/2 of all remaining data resides in the second segment from the right and so on and so forth. Which means that there is very little data available to record information/detail in the leftmost (darkest) segment.

So, if you expose to the right without clipping very much at all, you push/pull the leftmost side of your histogram right, into segments which have more data available to capture the shadow detail. Hence, you can bring more detail out of the shadows and pull back detail from what at first appears to be blown out highlights when post processing.

Did I learn anything Tim?

Yup, I'm afraid you guys have learned too much! With all the great images you all keep producing I'm being pushed closer to retirement all the time! It really is amazing how difficult some of the so-called experts make this exposure thing - it really is just as simple as looking at the histo.

I feel like I just won the A feature. Wait, that was in a previous life.

Thanks, everyone.

Okay, I had to look up the abbreviation ETTR from Google and saw that it is short for Expose To The Right. I have been doing that based on Tim's suggestion but I didn't know that there was a fancy dancy abbreviation for it.

Oooooh... 16-bit cameras... drooool....

Wow, the responses are great! I love questions that make me get my camera out and figure something out.
I seem to have been doing this kinda backwards. I usually shoot in aperture priority, which as you all know sets my shutter speed automatically. Then in turn I adjust my exposure comp to move the histogram to the right, which actually just adjusts the shutter speed dah. I gather from what Tim E. said was that (and I'm assuming again dangit) when shooting in "full manual" mode, one can adjust the shutter speed manually also, to in turn adjust the exposure to where one wants it.
I hope what I just wrote makes since.
Anyway, thanks again Mike for asking a very important question.
And again, the collective brains have come together for the good of the whole, or the one in my case.

Brad