Histograms - Reading/Understanding/Using them...

Having shot an airshow this past weekend, I had the basics down (I think...) for using exposure compensation to bring the aircraft out against a bright sky. NitroRoo mentioned the Histogram display and honestly, I haven't investigated how that works or what the information presented is really telling me. I know "blinkie-blinkie is bad", but that's about it.

So..... can the more experienced with this feature chime in on how one reads and interprets the information, and what changes are made to bring the image more in-line regarding a proper exposure?

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All you really want to look for with the histogram is whether it is pushed to the left or the right.

If pushed to the left then your image is likely underexposed.

If pushed to the right then it is likely overexposed.

Of course this also depends on the photo....night time scene is going to have much of the histogram to the left. High key photos are going to be pushed to the right.

http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/how-to-read-a-histogram.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d6oWndayEE

Depending on your camera you will have a RGB histogram and a brightness histogram. Start off learning your brightness histogram. This will indicate the brightness level of the exposure. Horizontally, left is darker & right is brighter. Vertically, the height of the peaks will indicate how many pixels in that range.

For starters, try to get the peaks towards the middle of the histogram. If anything, a little brighter is better as it is easier to darken in post, than it is to brighten.

RGB histogram works the same, but with the respective colors.

Your camera may have "blinkies". Once you make the exposure, check your LCD. Any areas that are overexposed will "blink".

The issue with a bright sky is that if you take the reading from the sky, you might underexpose the subject, and vice-versa.

However, depending on what you are shooting you might not want a "0" exposure.

Check out Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It will help you understand exposure a lot better.