Expose Right-Develop Left
A Video Investigation-right up the middle:
A lapse of photographic judgment recently produced three very appropriate test files for examining the usefulness of the “expose right” ideology in digital photography. I was shooting bracketed exposures of a church in rural North Dakota with HDR compositing in the back of my mind. The scene turned out to be lower dynamic range than I had anticipated. I ended up with three pictures in the bracketed sequence whose histograms were all within the range of the camera’s sensor. With these three bracketed shots, I could now test the merits of the “expose right” strategy.
A higher definition version is available at my website here.
I am keenly aware that this topic has been debated on photographic and image editing forums ad nauseum. I decided to, well, decide for myself. Even though the difference in the standard and the over-exposure were barely discernable in print (on this example) the under exposure (as some digital pundits promote) is visually inferior at arm’s length.
Test it for yourself and let me know what happens.
Rikk Flohr © 2009
August 26, 2009 at 10:34 am
Rick,
Thanks for demonstrating this so clearly in your example. I think it makes a strong case for exposing to the right. Just curious if you were using matrix, spot or partial metering in your examples.
Regards,
Jake
September 8, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Preaching to the choir here. I enjoy that you used stops in your editing explanations, an approach I haven’t thought about in Lightroom.