Raw histogram and why does it matter

That's a dumb question, especially from someone claiming to be a professional photographer, because obviously you cannot maximise the quality of the raw data by maximising the exposure* after the shutter has closed. The use of photo editing apps obviously occurs after the shutter has closed.

Questions like this combined with the nonsense you posted in your original post lead me to believe even stronger that you are not a professional photographer.

* exposure - amount of light that struck the sensor per unit area while the shutter was open
** optimal exposure - the maximum exposure* within dof and motion blur requirements without clipping important highlights.
*** under exposed - more exposure* could have been added with the DOF and blur constraints still being met without clipping important highlights.

Great idea!!! before you make an even bigger fool of yourself asking dumb questions like above while claiming to be a professional photographer 😜

I second your motion 👍👍

Your eyes can also move the sliders for desired display-image lightness in a converter with a raw that was exposed based on raw saturation. You may get less noise that way. If you don't want less noise, then this isn't for you, and you should have realized that hundreds of posts ago.

It's fine to allow unimportant highlights to clip. Normally that would be the sun or bright light sources. I rarely see an image where 2/3 of the image is clipped like in your example above. It's a super high key image so to say.

Probably both images had unrecoverable clipping to start with, so +- 1/3 stops didn't make a difference.
Try shooting one image at EV0 (zero exposure compensation) and another at EV+3 (just to make sure there's clipping). Then decrease the second image by 3 stops and compare histograms.

Again there's no such software. You can only maximise it when shooting.

No one is questioning that a large, hires field monitor may make it easier to see what you're doing in the field.

The field monitor is looking at display-ready RGB imagery, though; it has no special x-ray powers to see the raw levels, which are what determines whether a raw clips or not.

A raw histogram is NOT for determining image "lightness"; it is for determining clipping vs noise, and lightness can be varied in a converter after raw capture; it is not deterministic.

Maybe he is asking about software to maximize the use of the raw data?

**

There is the essence. Getting the best exposure is field craft. If you expose to the right without clipping highlights you need to keep, you provide every raw convertor with the best data.

Now, how do I stop every post in this thread sending me a reminder email? This thread has not only become spam as a result of it being enmity between two posters, it's also generating spam and filling my inbox.😕

David,

I guess it's here:

Tim

At the bottom right of every thread, to the left of the reply button, is a button to change subscription status

For this thread, yours should show E-Mail on the button right now. Just click on it to see your options.