Hi! Have you ever experienced that sometimes when we take pics with our digital camera / dslr, the pics we view on the viewfinder looks better than the pics we upload to our pcs or macs?

Hope you could share your experiences...

Jake, in my case...
I hope I can capture something exactly as how I saw/composed it...
I do not trust my camera's LCD screen or my computer's monitor--they're both deceptive...
I can just pray that my approximations in post processing can land me close to the image that I've originally seen before I pressed my shutter release...

:) Happy Shooting...

For best results use the histogram display in your camera. Learn how to read a histogram and it will tell you more or lesss how good or bad the shot is in terms of exposure.

hi nono, this was what i have also been wondering about.

i tend to shoot in program mode and manual, however, to get the mood of the scene, i either bring it down two or three stops in ambient light in which I agree with earl on my wishes.

also, i was wondering what "exposing to the right" (correct term?) means with the histogram.

thanks a bunch

i tend to shoot in program mode and manual, however, to get the mood of the scene, i either bring it down two or three stops in ambient light in which I agree with earl on my wishes.

Hi Paul, I agree with Earl that both the camera's tiny LCD screen and your computer's monitor are deceptive. But between each of them, I'd trust the monitor over the camera's LCD screen? Why? Because I can calibrate my monitor using a colorimeter but my camera's LCD screen can only be tweaked using a brightness level adjustment (in-camera).


also, i was wondering what "exposing to the right" (correct term?) means with the histogram.

When the historgram is concentrated on the left side, that means that there are more dark areas in your image. Conversely, if the histogram is concentrated on the right side, that means that thereare more bright areas in your image than dark areas. There are great debates on what is more apt for digital photography. Most people simply follow the "expose-to-the-right" rule without really know how it works.

But also do note that overexposure and underexposure are subjective on what and how you are metering. For example, on really bright and sunny days at the beach, I set my camera to evaluative metering but adjust my EC down to 1 stop under. I get better blues in my skies this way. My camera may be thinking that I am 1 stop underexposed, but looking at my histogram, I am fine.

Another thing to consider is that the histograms we are used to reading is made of of three parts: Red, Green, and Blue. The histogram presents a general picture. Sometimes for example, the histogram gives you a near-bell curve but in reality the Red channel may be a bit blown off.

Here are some resources that you may want to read:

PDF doc from Adobe.com on Linear Gamma (http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf)
Luminous Lanscape's tutorial on Exposing to the Right (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml)
A nice article on histograms (http://www.cdegroot.com/photo-digital-histogram/)

This is taken from the last link (http://www.cdegroot.com/photo-digital-histogram/):

When shooting in auto mode, try overexposing 1/3 stop to shift your histogram just that little safe bit to the right. Of course, experimentation is key - the great thing about digital is that experimentation is all for free!

For best results use the histogram display in your camera. Learn how to read a histogram and it will tell you more or lesss how good or bad the shot is in terms of exposure.

hi nono,

I always use the histogram on my d200 to get the best results...however, there are times that when I upload the pics on my mac, i doesn't look like the pic i took when i viewed on my lcd screen...sometimes i really have to tweak on photoshop or aperture...guess i should shoot in RAW more oftenly...

Earl...time for me to invest in more CF cards...:Shock:

Nono, Bro! :) Good Post here... Thanks for the link share! :)

hi nono, this was what i have also been wondering about.

i tend to shoot in program mode and manual, however, to get the mood of the scene, i either bring it down two or three stops in ambient light in which I agree with earl on my wishes.

also, i was wondering what "exposing to the right" (correct term?) means with the histogram.

thanks a bunch

Paul,

Correct me if I'm wrong ha...

The way I understand it, I believe that what you are currently doing- - - bringing it down 2-3 stops to bring in ambient light is exposing to the right.

Because if you will read the histogram, images exposed and that are leaning to the right side of the histogram means it captured more of the highlights while to the left means it exposed more of the shadows....

tama ba? :Oops:

hi nono,

I always use the histogram on my d200 to get the best results...however, there are times that when I upload the pics on my mac, i doesn't look like the pic i took when i viewed on my lcd screen...sometimes i really have to tweak on photoshop or aperture...guess i should shoot in RAW more oftenly...

Earl...time for me to invest in more CF cards...:Shock:

Jake, I have the same problems too. Usually the images shown in the camera's LCD screen are brighter in my case. I am able to closely match prints with what I see in my computer's display so I'm assuming that the more correct one is indeed my computer's display.

Nono, Bro! Good Post here... Thanks for the link share!
No prob Earl, I owe you for helping me out in the other thread :)

Jake, I have the same problems too. Usually the images shown in the camera's LCD screen are brighter in my case. I am able to closely match prints with what I see in my computer's display so I'm assuming that the more correct one is indeed my computer's display.


No prob Earl, I owe you for helping me out in the other thread :)

your right Nono ..:Grin: sometimes you just get confused of the thought that you got that perfect shot thinking that you don't need to go through all the tweaking on photoshop...and you end up doing the necessary adjustments...

well i guess we just can't have everything...:Grin:

Thanks for the enlightenment

Nikon Cams normally underexpose all its shots....