Rawdigger?

[Allan]

Art Morris has been touting the above to get perfect exposure. He claims people underexpose when using the cameras histograms. I wonder if anyone uses rawdigger in the field. I can see using it if you can shoot, move the file to a pc, look at the file in rawdigger, make adjustments in exposure, and shoot again. I guess you could always take a well exposed image and then another one at +1 exposure and later compare before processing. I digress. I want to know if anyone uses it and opinions.

 

[gchappel]

I use rawdigger at home while processing. I have found, at least on my sony gear, I can expose at least a stop, sometimes a little more than a stop, than the camera says and still have no blown highlights in rawdigger. The histograms and zebra blinkies, at least on the sony gear, are really conservative.
I can’t see using it in the field, don’t have to.
Gary

 

[Allan]

Your post is the claim of rawdigger. Glad to read it works for you. I expose based on blinkies or zebras. Do you just add more exposure to that if you are shooting in the field?

 

[gchappel]

On the sony gear I can adjust the zebras so they don’t blink until different levels of overexposure. I don’t remember what I came to use, but it is something like 110% overexposure before they blink. Once you figure it out for your camera it just works. Dont’ need to do additional adjustments in the field. I will often get a shot and think this is way overexposed, especially white birds. They aren’t.
Gary

 

[gchappel]

You can add at least a stop most of the time. Be careful in harsh sunlight, that is less forgiving.
Gary

 

[Allan]

I will give this a try

 

[gchappel]

I should say that although I now expose more Ettr than before, with the newer sensors I really have not seen any difference in my prints. I don’t think even exposure is as important as it used to be, as long as it is close and you have not blown anything out. I will be interested to hear your conclusions.
I suspect what I was chasing, no longer makes any difference. At least to my work.
Gary

 

[Allan]

I suspect what I was chasing, no longer makes any difference.

That is the truth Gary. I think I will increase the zebra threshold a bit and be satisfied. Thanks for your responses.

 

[Butlerkid]

Most cameras, even Nikons, are very conservative regarding exposure. I know of one person who adds either +.5 or 1 exposure stop to her basic camera settings.

In the field, I simply watch the histogram and don't worry if it is a bit blocked up on the right hand side. HOWEVER, with white birds I am a bit conservative since I want to keep details in the whites.

 

[gchappel]

I would actually recommend people try this, they did have a 30day free trial.
I actually bought both raw viewer and raw digger. I use raw viewer a lot.
I now use it instead of photomechanic to cull through the images.
The raw exposure data is there. So is a crude focus finder I find useful.
I learned a lot about exposure using this.
Still didn’t help my pictures any though.
Gary

 

[drr1531]

Art Morris has been touting the above to get perfect exposure....

Does he define perfect exposure?

... I don’t think even exposure is as important as it used to be, as long as it is close and you have not blown anything out....

I came to that conclusion quite a while ago. Unless I'm shooting an event and need to produce a large number of jpegs as soon as possible I don't even bother with optimum exposure in the field. In good light I typically shoot for blinkies just starting to appear. In low/flat light and images with a lot of midtones I just push the histogram to right of center and call it good. Bright sun and white birds I back away from the blinkies half a stop or so. Since the histogram/blinkies in Nikon cameras is based on the jpeg preview image I set my in camera processing to "neutral" for the best indication of what the RAW file looks like.

 

[Butlerkid]

I would actually recommend people try this, they did have a 30day free trial.
I actually bought both raw viewer and raw digger. I use raw viewer a lot.
I now use it instead of photomechanic to cull through the images.
The raw exposure data is there. So is a crude focus finder I find useful.
I learned a lot about exposure using this.
Still didn’t help my pictures any though.
Gary

Gary - are you using FastRawViewer or RAWViewer by Sony?

 

[gchappel]

Oops, sorry.
Fastrawviewer.
gary

 

[Butlerkid]

Oops, sorry.
Fastrawviewer.
gary

Thanks, Gary!

Is it possible to use a custom camera color profile with Fast Raw Viewer, such as can be created by Xrite's Color Checker Passport?

 

[TonyW]

Art Morris has been touting the above to get perfect exposure. He claims people underexpose when using the cameras histograms. I wonder if anyone uses rawdigger in the field. I can see using it if you can shoot, move the file to a pc, look at the file in rawdigger, make adjustments in exposure, and shoot again. I guess you could always take a well exposed image and then another one at +1 exposure and later compare before processing. I digress. I want to know if anyone uses it and opinions.

The claim of underexposure or rather less than optimal exposure is true really for raw. Camera histograms based on the sRGB JPEG displayed on your LCD screen. A “correctly exposed” JPEG will bean underexposed raw..

RawDigger is an analytical raw tool that will give you true and useful information about your exposures. It allows you to view something that your camera will not show you I.e a true raw histogram - you will see just how much you are underexposing your raw files. It cannot be used in the field as it is not designed for that purpose. Well I suppose you could as you highlighted but that method too cumbersome IMO.

It will allow you to see just how much your raw editor is adding to your image data both in display and histogram and allow you to account for these additions including Baseline Exposure (BLE) changes which many raw editors do in the background. As an example in ACR and LR BLE adds about +1.3 EV + contrast and Black point changes to Nikon D800 @ 100 ISO and to my Pentax 645z around +1.5EV. Note these changes not necessarily constant throughout ISO range.

 

[Allan]

It will allow you to see just how much your raw editor is adding to your image data both in display and histogram and allow you to account for these additions including Baseline Exposure (BLE) changes which many raw editors do in the background. As an example in ACR and LR BLE adds about +1.3 EV + contrast and Black point changes to Nikon D800

Do you mean if you bring the raws into LR with auto changes (or whatever it is called checked)?

 

[TonyW]

Do you mean if you bring the raws into LR with auto changes (or whatever it is called checked)?

No, Lightroom and ACR and many other raw editors do not expose you to the actual changes made when a raw is imported. Things like BLE amount etc. are encoded in the file but only revealed if a file is converted to DNG and you have a program such as RawDigger that can utilise the information. Once you have this information it is possible to show a preview in Adobe products by altering the Tone Curve, Exposure, Contrast and Black point. I saved this as a preset for Nikon and Pentax for ISO 100. Remember RawDigger is only a tool it does not change your raw image data in any way just gives you a lot of info.

Look at this sample image at first sight in LR it appears to be reasonably exposed by the presentation on-screen and the histogram? Wait a few seconds and you will get a closer approximation to the raw data after demosaic and white point applied any you should see that the image is much darker and you will also see in the Basic LR panel what Adobe has applied to the raw showing the degree of underexposure that is not apparent in the original import

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[TomP]

Most cameras, even Nikons, are very conservative regarding exposure. I know of one person who adds either +.5 or 1 exposure stop to her basic camera settings.

In the field, I simply watch the histogram and don't worry if it is a bit blocked up on the right hand side. HOWEVER, with white birds I am a bit conservative since I want to keep details in the whites.

Odd. I have always shot at -1/3, guess that is from my D200 days, they seemed to always shoot to the light side.

 

[Butlerkid]

Odd. I have always shot at -1/3, guess that is from my D200 days, they seemed to always shoot to the light side.

Re-read Post #13. LR/ACR add about 1.3 stops to exposure to raws. If you used -.3 exposure you were simply dialing down LR/ACR processing.......NOT the raw.

 

[Butlerkid]

Thanks, Gary!

Is it possible to use a custom camera color profile with Fast Raw Viewer, such as can be created by Xrite's Color Checker Passport?

The response from FastRawViewer is that they "do not support external color profiles at the moment"......