Proof of effort, why we do it, benefits? (all techniques and processing)

It struck me, that we were/are talking about all these ways, techniques and approaches to the photography, but very rarely I see some great examples.
Can this be a place to discuss efforts/returns ratios, techniques, compatibility of these, real use, and examples?

ETTR&UniWB:
Why, Where, how much improvement, compatibility with scenes?

Lighting:
How much effort/returns, highlights management, patience and waiting, usual and unconventional gear.

Gear:
Basic/base gear price versus support gear price versus efforts.

Processing:
Efforts, art versus fakeness balance, skills.

Outcomes:
Benefits and rewards, compatibility of techniques assesment, justification, enjoyment, praise, people´s reactions.

It would be great to hear multiple opinions and takes on this in one thread.

Here is general take on the gear, and bit on usage and processing too.

When I started more seriously with photography, I was alone with a DSLR. It was the EOS 400D with a kit lens, but compact cameras were very inferior back then, and DSLRs quite unreachable for most as a toy to play with. And so my photography was wanted. (Parties and such).
The issue was, that I was not happy with the quality still. Very high standards confronted with dark scenes. What could one do, with an old DSLR, a kit lens, no lights and not much skill, no processing.
Usually, ISO 800 was the limit of the photography before it got unusable, and waste rates were crazy, because I rather risked motion blur than a noisy photo.
I would stay that way forever, but thankfully, technology advanced so much in the meantime.

Compared to current sate of technology and prices, I can have one to three stops better image quality from the camera, one to three stops better image quality from the lens, either via wide aperture, IS or sharpness and resolution, and I can have one to three stops better image quality from the processing.
Not all advantages add up together, but in general, I can say I now have 2-6 stops of image quality advantage compared to the history. And that changes things a lot.

Even on my Canon EOS M6 II, ISO3200 was a threshold, over which I would not usually go. 4k output image with fairly high quality standards, or no image at all. That was the deal. Well, here comes the efforts. I did take a very random, otherwise unusable picture of a dark scene on the table.

It´s a dark image, to match the preserved darks in the JPEG image output. Otherwise it would be all grey.
It doesn´t say anything about anything really. Except that it is ISO 25600 shot. I am marveling over the drastic advantage the technology gives me, providing so usable output at such high ISO speeds. That is, ISO 800 before to ISO 25600 with arguably better results than before. 5 stops, no fast lens, no additional lighting.
My jaw is still on the ground. Cannot pick it up.
Here is detail comparison between my large sensor phone camera output (three major quality issues even for FullHD output), In-camera JPG output with slight LR denoise, and fully "managed and processed" .

The phone camera holds its own very often for snapshots, but no match for sheer resources supportted by more efforts.
Not always the difference can be so large, but not always it is needed.

And so that´s that. The base hardware certainly covers a lot. It´s a great privilege to be in this time and age.
Also, that claim that "it is not the gear", that doesn´t go well with me.
What would FF do for me? Would another stop or two, and not always, solve anything? I had FF, I know how much more magic it does. No arguing about that. Talking about practical daily difference.

Next one is lighting and lighting gear. I do not posses it yet (again).

Are you happy with the noise level in your base-ISO photographs? If so, no need to do things like ETTR and UniWB to improve the quality unless you think you might want to make bigger prints later on.

Lighting makes a huge difference, but good lighting takes time to learn, time to set up, and sometimes is hard to cart around. I'd suggest starting with learning lighting in a room that you can leave the gear in. There's no end to the learning, really. At the beginning, try to minimize the number of light sources. Learn how to use light modifiers, gobos, and reflectors.

But all that is a big commitment. Do you need to learn it to improve your images? Only you can decide what you need to do to improve your images.

By the way, learning to do your own lighting will make you a better available light photographer. .

Not always. Not always base ISO speed is the proper settings, not always I can take the picture as is, and downsize it for reference (4k) archiving.

Sometimes lens corrections and leveling creep in, sometimes there is not enough light, sometimes zoom and macro requires cropping. So quite often, noise remains to be an issue.

I did have my episode with multiple flashes, HSS, diffusers, fresnel lens, reflector, ceiling as a reflector, softbox, multiple light sources, light painting for product photography. I am aware about "The strobist" and such. Not an absolute rookie, but also have a thing or two to learn. No experience in waiting, golden hour etc.

What surprises me is the recommendation for one light source. Haven't heard of it ever.
It sounds dangerous for product photography and avoiding highlights.

Great notes though, much appreciated!

If you can't use base ISO, ETTR and UniWB aren't going to help you much.

I said minimize the number of light sources. I guess one is the minimum, since zero would be available light. I was suggesting that as a way to learn how to light stuff. If you start out with five lights, it's going to be hard to optimize your shots, and learn how light placement and light modifiers work. After you're na expert, use as many light sources as you wish.

You'd be surprised what you can do with one light source, gobos, light modifiers, and reflectors.

Maybe. But it is matter of deeper understanding.
If I use just one strong light source, I will be plagued with a highlight spot and with shadow. The magic is not in the single source "as is, as presented" then.

Indeed, ETTR has limited use. But as cameras are not ISOless, it has been demonstrated that rising ISO speed for sake of image brightness brings better results than leaving it at dark image.

Not necessarily with artful use of gobos, light modifiers, and reflectors. Of course, there are some subjects that need cross-polarization.

Sometimes so, sometimes not.

One light, one diffuser, one reflector.

Technique: Bird Photography in Winter

Yeah, I know it can suck to be out in the cold to photograph birds in flight but there is at least one benefit of getting out when there's snow on the ground. The ground acts as a huge reflector.

One of the challenges of bird in-flight photography is that, when the Sun gets high enough in the sky, the underside of a bird in-flight will be in shadow. Waiting for a moment when the bird banks and exposes its underside to the Sun is one way of dealing with this. However, if you're out when there's snow on the ground, you'll gain as much as a full stop of light on the bird's underside even when the Sun is well up in the sky.

Here's a photo of a red-tailed hawk from earlier this year illustrating this:

And another from a couple of years ago illustrating the same benefit of using snow-covered ground as a reflector:

Technique: Using Your Car as a Blind

Last summer, I visited the White Mountains of east-central Arizona to spend a few days doing wildlife photography. While driving a lonely, two-lane asphalt road through the foothills, I spotted some small birds flitting about the wildflowers just off the shoulder. I stopped in the next pullout and spent a couple of hours photographing rufous hummingbirds harvesting nectar from firecracker penstemons, all from the front seat of my vehicle shooting through the open front passenger window. The hummers weren't bothered at all by my presence just a few feet away.

Technique: Dragging the Shutter

Some may associate this with flash photography but I'm bringing it up as a field technique for low-light situations. It's common when doing fast action photography to use a shutter speed that will freeze movement in the frame. However, there are times when the available light is so minimal and when using a flash would be inappropriate that freezing movement may be impractical. In those moments, we might be tempted to be stubborn and continue to use a fast shutter speed. We might even be tempted to give up and go home. I suggest looking at those situations as creative opportunities. Rather than using a shutter speed to freeze movement, use a shutter speed that calls attention to movement. I mean, really calls attention to it.

In wildlife and bird photography, it's not uncommon to get animal activity during the twilight hours. Here, are a couple of example photos showing how you can use a slow shutter speed to create an abstract composition or one in which the subject's face is just sharp enough to provide an anchor for an image that emphasizes the movement of the subject.

That's because "great" is entirely subjective. One person's "great" is another person's "delete in camera".
Also, we don't all shoot the same stuff. Some of the words you used, "scenes", "highlights management", "patience and waiting" for example don't really apply to the type of photography I usually do. It sort of implies landscape, nature, or maybe wildlife which I only do rarely or opportunistically (I never go searching for this stuff but if a bird flies by I might take a picture).

And often, it's completely impossible, unless you have a nice nuclear bomb I could use to strobe those back mountains.

I keep this one around to make that point.

Technique: Bird Photography with the Wind and Sun at Your Back

A technique I use every time I go out to do bird photography is seeking locations where I can have both the Sun and wind at my back. Birds like to launch and land while flying into the wind. Placing the wind at your back creates more opportunities with birds flying toward you...into the wind. Having Sun at your back helps ensure the bird will be well-lit on approach.