• justTonypanorama_fish_eye
    46 posts
    2 years ago

    I gave up on the D810's implementation. It appeared to respond heavily to placement of the bright section within the frame, and it maybe had a threshold effect regarding the percentage of the frame occupied by that bright section.

    I'm having some degree of better luck with my Z bodies. I'm not ready to make any generalizations yet but I had fairly good luck last night with Matrix mode metering plus careful placement of the focusing square for AF-S Pinpoint at the brightest section of the thunderhead as seen below. I took advantage of Nikon's bias of the metering based on what's under the focus spot. I adjusted the exposure until I was convinced that I was beginning to see texture in the viewfinder of the brightest part of the cloud. I understood that was going be a very cautious approach. I've ruined many Alpenglow images by accidentally saturating the red channel.

    The LR screenshot is a simple import into Adobe Standard before having applied any large creative edits (I do have a small Clarity adjustment in my default though). This view was quite a bit similar to the viewfinder experience. The red square in the frame indicates both the focus spot placement in camera and where I observed the L* = 95 result in LR. 95 is where I typically get nervous about whether I can achieve good local contrast in the edited image without blowing anything out.
    Thunderhead with simple import.jpg

    But it was about a stop down from the saturation level of about 16000 (note my manually set X-axis range). I could adopt a landscape field technique of achieving texture in the brights as seen in camera, in combination with an upward direction bracket sequence.
    Thunderhead raw data peak.jpg

    Late edit: I might have just invented a slower, more cumbersome approach vs ggbutcher's go-to technique: "My Z 6 has a "highlight-weighted matrix" mode, which anchors the exposure to some part of the high end rather than middle gray; it typically leaves about a stop of headroom versus a true ETTR exposure."

  • DonaldBpanorama_fish_eye
    2378 posts
    2 years ago

    you would be better off with a single vertical column of colours up the left side of the evf, they would glow to the intensity of the how saturated the individual colours
    are, and then blink from slow to fast as you are getting closer to the saturation point of those individual colours. 3 colours are meaninless.

  • MikeFewsterpanorama_fish_eye
    1928 posts
    2 years ago

    They sure are. I'd guess that pretty well everyone who digs into their photography deeply enough to want Photoshop rather than more basic editors, would want a RAW histogram in the camera. That has to be quite a lot of buyers. It is definitely something that would identify the camera as a "pro" model and of course being "pro" is good marketing as well.

  • LeicaManpanorama_fish_eye
    45 posts
    2 years ago

    Maybe I misunderstand the question because I don't use histograms but Sony certainly has histograms visible prior to capturing RAW images. I haven't checked my Leicas but I will when I think of it. Since my cameras are all set to record only RAW and I had an histogram visible in the EVF of my A7c today.

  • ggbutcherpanorama_fish_eye
    138 posts
    2 years ago

    The histogram visible in the camera's EVF is calculated from what would be the "as-processed" image, not the raw data.

  • JimKassonpanorama_fish_eye
    1738 posts
    2 years ago

    If you read through some of the posts in this thread, the point of the OP will become apparent to you.

  • DonaldBpanorama_fish_eye
    2378 posts
    2 years ago

    the raw data is not the signal from the sensor either . so tell me what data would you like displayed and why.
    which part of the pipe line do you think would be best for a histogram input.

  • DanHasLeftForumhelp_outline
    4254 posts
    2 years ago

    A histogram of the data that would be written to the raw file would be more useful for me than the histogram of the processed raw data that digital cameras display.

  • bobn2panorama_fish_eye
    2 years ago

    Pretty much is. I know some manufacturers mess with it a little, but the intent is that it's a dump of the digitised data straight off the sensor.

  • IliahBorgpanorama_fish_eye
    976 posts
    2 years ago

    The histogram of the data the camera is recording or going to record.
    Obviously :)))
    Is it the sensor data or not - doesn't matter for the purpose.

  • DonaldBpanorama_fish_eye
    2378 posts
    2 years ago

    I think you guys need to relook at your testing procedures. jPeg settings change the histogram LOL. now thats really not correct at all, at least with my cameras anyway.

  • IliahBorgpanorama_fish_eye
    976 posts
    2 years ago

    Are you saying that even JPEG histograms are incorrect, not of the data the camera records? :)))

  • ggbutcherpanorama_fish_eye
    138 posts
    2 years ago

    The raw data is as close to the signal as anyone will get, including the camera firmware developers. They may do minor modifications before packing it in the raw file, but that data has to be close to scene-linear or they mess up anyone's expectation of "raw"...

    Frankly, after considering a good bit of the discussion here, I don't want a raw histogram, I'd rather have clipping blinkies based on the raw data. Even then, screw all that as I'm coming to terms with my highlight-weighted metering mode. Now, back to the "discussion"...

  • IliahBorgpanorama_fish_eye
    976 posts
    2 years ago

    From the practical point of view IMO it doesn't even matter. What matters to me is that the histogram must reflect the data being written.

  • fredkpanorama_fish_eye
    173 posts
    2 years ago

    When I bought FastRaw it was to review and sort photos for keepers. At the time I thought everyone did their histograms the same way.
    In fact, I asked on the micro 4/3 forum why the histotrams looked different between the viewer and darktable and got lots of explanations about settings. Nobody that replied talked about the difference between a jpeg histogram and a raw histogram. I believe that the default for Darktable was to use jpegs not raw. Kind of odd given how technical a product it is.

    Now that I know how in camera histograms are produced, I can take a series of images at different exposure compensation levels to figure out how I should interpret the in camera histograms for best exposure.

    If I were to guess why manufacturers continue to use the jpeg histogram it might be because a majority of people use jpeg rather than processing raw. It seems useful to have a jpeg histogram that shows the result of the in camera processing that creates your image so that you can adjust for 'optimal' jpeg exposure.

  • IliahBorgpanorama_fish_eye
    976 posts
    2 years ago

    Why do they have raw as an output format option then? ;)
    Why Adobe, Affinity, Capture One, DxO, Luminar, SILKYPIX, ..., how do they get their profit?
    How RawTherapy, Darktable, ... have their joy?
    Why LibRaw has millions of users?

  • TimoKpanorama_fish_eye
    300 posts
    2 years ago

    Don't ask that very loud. The main players at the camera industry might start to think, "ehm, why? Why are we still giving photographers the possibility to manage their own pictures?
    We have invested billions in Jupiter/ Venus II /Mars IX / Napoleon XIV* image processors. Now is at last the time to get some ROI."

  • JimKassonpanorama_fish_eye
    1738 posts
    2 years ago

    2023-05-25 09.06.25.jpg

    2023-05-25 09.06.36.jpg

    2023-05-25 09.06.36.jpg

    JPG, 177.1 KB, uploaded by JimKasson 2 years ago.

    2023-05-25 09.06.25.jpg

    JPG, 158.8 KB, uploaded by JimKasson 2 years ago.