Blown highlights are evidenced in the histogram as values off the right
side of the scale. However, the histogram (and apparently the blinkies
as well) in the *ist cameras describe the jpeg image. When shooting
RAW, some highlights that might shown as off the scale can actually be
accommodated. Thus, I look at the histogram as a guide, not an
absolute. And of course there are situations where one might wish to
include blown highlights for aesthetic reasons. Example: specular
highlights on water.
Paul
On Dec 27, 2005, at 12:57 PM, Dario Bonazza wrote:
First, I agree that blown highlights can just be another way to show
the right part of the histogram. However, that's not always true: just
think of a bright sky in a corner of a backlit building almost filling
the picture: the histogram could well describe the light distribution
within the backlit building and you'll be fooled by a perfect
histogram missing the sky (far right, outside the histogram scale).
In my opinion, the blown highlights should be tuned for "whiter than
white" (i.e. any level outside the histogram, on the right). This way,
they would perfectly complement the histogram and you won't risk to
forget a bright area whose brightness is far above a nice balance of
shadow levels (depicted by the histogram you are tuning with
exposure).
However, I understand that in practice blown highlight could be tuned
from very close to the right side of the histogram scale (I don't know
which level) upward (no limits, of course), which is not bad either.
Dario
----- Original Message ----- From: "Kenneth Waller"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 6:39 PM
Subject: Re: Survey: How do you use the Histogram/Blinkies?
I'm not too sure that you can tell if you have blown highlights from
just the histogram.
Which raises an interesting question....
@ what level of over exposure are the blinkies turned on?
Kenneth Waller
----- Original Message ----- From: "P. J. Alling"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Survey: How do you use the Histogram/Blinkies?
I'm not too sure that you can tell if you have blown highlights from
just the histogram. Since I've been using the Ds, (it has some nice
points but I do miss the D), I've had the blinkies turned on with
the histogram. I've gotten blinkies with what looks like a perfectly
acceptable histogram.
