How UNDEREXPOSING transforms your photography.

[@angeldepabloescriba5420]

Changing the metering mode to spot instead of matrix (whatever the name is for each brand), and exposing for the lights you want to preserve is the way to go for me at night. Way more versatile than exposure compensation due to the variety of conditions you may find in night street photography. Great content!

[@pithaupert]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the feedback! I know some cameras have a highlight metering mode which could be useful too! I see why you would spot meter the highlights but is your metering point tied to your autofocus point?

[@RegrinderAlert]

@@pithaupertWith highlight metering, the strongest highlights are protected, so not necessarily the ones you want to protect. Especially in night photography highlight-metering falls short imo. Personally I still use exposure comp with overexposure warnings (blinking) enabled. But if you use spot-metering you would probably do it by binding AE-L to a button: - Aim at brightest area you *want to preserve” - Press AE-Lock button - Focus, frame etc.

[@pithaupert]

@@RegrinderAlert Thanks for the insights on highlight metering! I do not own a camera that has that feature. AE Lock might help to overcome the spot meter and focus box coupling issue!

[@TimoNausch]

Good video, Pit, with nice examples! I’d like to add that underexposing at night is often closer to the "correct" exposure, as the camera doesn't recognize it’s nighttime and tries to measure the light as if it were daytime. That’s also why, on cloudy days or in snowy conditions, I usually overexpose slightly-because all the white and grey tones tend to confuse the light meter.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks sm Timo! That‘s a great addition!☺️ I never really questioned why the meter struggles in certain conditions but just took it as a fact that it does struggle🤪 Now brands need to release dedicated night and snow metering modes lol

[@johanp8391]

Your comments are spot on for urban night photography. I use exposure compensation to make the image in the viewfinder appear the same as what I see in reality. Generally, I underexpose by 1 to 2 1/3 stops

[@pithaupert]

Thanks so much!☺️ Yeah there is probably no way around underexposing in urban environments! I tried to be moderate with my underexposing advice but yeah sometimes -2 EV or more is required to get the scene to realistic to what you actually saw!😉

[@ndc5544p]

but if I lift the shadows, the noise will come again. I mean, ISO is only an amplification of the signal, so the noisy signal get's less amplification at low ISO's. I will test it out these days, but I'm certain that the noise is still there, it's just not as visible. Exposing correctly will reduce noise, but that means also increasing shutter speed or using a faster lens to gather more light, raising ISO will only amplify the available signal, and that means noise as well. Edit: also if you use ETTR, you would see that your highlights are clipping. So you would expose for them lowering the exposure until they're not. Basically, ETTR can be applied anytime, or to be more to the point: use the histogram to gauge correct exposure in any given scene, and look out for clipping highlights or shadows and judge where you want to preserve information based on it. Edit 2: shortened to be more concise. ISO or the exposure dial in lightroom do basically the same thing sans the image pipeline of the camera. Either you crush the highlights or shadows in camera or in lightroom. Underexposing for underexposure's sake will net you cleaner *looking* images, but as soon as you start increasing the exposure dial the noise will creep back in, just as it would if you increased the ISO.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks for your comment! In minute seven, I highlight an extreme example of what happens when you severely underexpose a scene, especially with an already high ISO of 2000. As expected, extreme shadow recovery looks bad! That’s why I recommend underexposing within reason: primarily to preserve highlights, compensate for a camera’s tendency to overexpose, or achieve a particular style. If you limit your underexposure to about one stop and later lift the shadows moderately, the resulting noise amplification is manageable in my experience. Of course, some sensors handle this better than others. I shoot with an excellent APS-C sensor that I’d say roughly compares to what most viewers use, meaning the noise penalty from lifting shadows after reasonable underexposure is acceptable.

[@pithaupert]

I saw you edited your comment. Edit 1: The reason why ETTR does not work in high contrast scenes is because you have bright highlights and dark shadows. So by exposing to the right, you do not actually expose to the right very much because you immediately clip highlights. Additionally, the very bright highlights might not even be visible on the histogram meaning that you unintentionally clip them even when the histogram tells you they are properly exposed. Edit 2: I agree with you that amplifying shadows in post will give you similar results to what these shadows would have looked like if you had exposed them in camera at a higher ISO. However, properly exposing shadows in-camera will automatically also increase highlights making them blow out and irrecoverable due to the higher ISO limiting your DR even further (unless you use DR settings). So usually underexpose giving me the best compromise between shadow and highlight recovery albeit at the expense of some more grain in the shadows.

[@alexanderson6450]

You should be talking about ways of correctly exposing an image, the use of the word underexpose will lead people to expose incorrectly.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks for the constructive feedback! I could have clarified from what exposure I underexpose from. I underexpose a scene based on what the camera would consider a proper exposure in a semi-automatic mode in which the light meter tends to overexpose. Although it becomes clear through out the video, I could have more clearly stated what exposure I am starting from. How to properly expose a scene is a great topic for a future video!😉

[@autokrohne]

The rule of thumb for exposure with film was to expose for the shadows with negative film, but to expose for highlight detail with transparency (slide} film. Digital sensors are more like transparency film, so under exposure makes a lot of sense as highlights too easily get blown out with normal exposures. Proper exposure was initially created for negative film, not for transparency film.

[@ChillyCrispin]

Exactly! One of the great things I love about Fujifilm cameras is the dynamic range option to preserve highlights is amazing

[@arianvangend2536]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but if you always use ETTR, you maximise light gathering, and thereby maximise signal to noise ratio, and also avoid blowing out highlights. Pulling the exposure down in post will then get you a cleaner image than underexposing the scene in camera will. And you keep the extra flexibility that comes with it. So I don't see any benefit to underexposing like this.

[@pithaupert]

Dear Arian, in the video I make a quick reference to ETTR which is very useful to properly expose a scene that has no high dynamic range (e.g. no bright highlights and no dark shadows). The problem about ETTR is that you tend to overexpose the bright highlights that are irrecoverable in post since highlight recovery can be very limited. Often these highlights do not even show up on your histogram. While ETTR gives you very very clean shadows, it risks to blow out very bright spots of light, especially in low-light photography. ETTR and underexposure coexist but one should be mindful when to use one over the other! Hope that helps!

[@arianvangend2536]

@@pithaupert I can see how ETTR is a risk if you tend to miss overexposure on the histogram or don't have real-time blinkies (looking at you Canon). I personally never have a problem with that so ETTR works better in my situation. Thanks for elaborating on this.

[@pithaupert]

@@arianvangend2536 Yeah just do whatever has proven to work best for you in practice! But at the same time, it is always good to extend one's horizon with other methods even when they might not necessarily be of practical use most of the time!

[@holzvvrm7718]

Yes, basically ETTR with ISO as low as possible and the necessary aperture and time to achieve your desired effect. Basically gather as much physical light as you can, then adjust exposure in post. That way you maximize signal to noise, thus getting as clean an image as possible

[@motomium]

Both overdoing underexposing and overexposing tends to create unrecoverable shadows and highlights respectively. I wouldn't call finding your preference and using some common sense photography-transforming 🤨 I tend to underexpose by a couple of thirds even in daylight because I think it looks better but it's a preference. In the end bracketing is best whenever possible. And of course, avoid shooting light sources in the night. I dislike chroma noise more than blown highlights.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks for commenting! It is truly interesting that you are already the second person to comment on the chroma noise part in which I show a very very extreme case of underexposure. You are right that extreme underexposure and overexposure is bad! But often you can underexpose moderately (as you do!) which allows you to not blow out your highlights while keeping your shadows recoverable. In the end, it‘s really all a matter of preference. I know incredible photographers who expose for the shadows while completely blowing out the sky and they don‘t give a single damn!😆 So what I say in the video is at best a guidance you may follow but don‘t have to! Thanks for watching!☺️

[@BrettyPOV]

The counterpoint to ETTR. I like this style.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks so much!☺️ Yeah I think both ETTR and Underexposure have a place but choose wisely🤪

[@StefanBeyer]

All you say makes sense for the type of dark scenes you are showing. But "underexposing" is not the correct term. You are exposing correctly. Instead your camera tends to overexpose dark scenes, if you leave the exposure compensation at 0. Go out to on a day very everything is covered in snow or too a sandy beach during a sunny day and the opposite will happen, your camera will underexpose. And you would set exposure compensation to +1. Instead of telling people to "underexpose" you teach them how light meters work. It's called exposure "compensation" for a reason.

[@pithaupert]

Thanks for your feedback Stefan! I could have clarified what I mean by underexposing: underexposing relative to the camera‘s metering in a semi-automatic mode. One could argue that in reality what I do is not ‚underexposing‘ but exposing correctly. But at the same time, I do not necessarily ‚expose correctly‘ if I expose for the highlights making all my shadows darker than they are in reality. The sunny day you described where you would overexpose, assuming it is a sunset, I would probably expose for the highlights, so yes, I ‚correctly‘ expose for the highlights but my shadows are likely to be underexposed. Do you see what I mean? Often ‚correctly exposing‘ for one means underexposing another. But underexposing can also just mean to turn your exposure compensation dial to a negative number. I think you have a good point that some of the arguments I make in the video can also be considered to properly expose. While on the other hand, I stylistically underexpose a scene to obscure unwanted shadow detail, which you would probably agree to that this is underexposing. So our discussion, (while truly interesting, seriously!) is rather conceptual than practical! I‘m an academic so in my papers I bore people with theory during the first ten pages, that‘s how it is. In a KZbin video I do not conceptualise what I personally mean by underexposing because it is not what people are looking for. Rather, they look for practical guidance for better photos and I hopefully succeeded at that! Thanks for watching and the debate on underexposing, it really illuminates that what underexposing means is not as straight forward as I thought it was!☺️

[@StefanBeyer]

@@pithaupert Hey, thanks for the detailed reply! All good points. I think the problem is that our eyes (or our brains) have a higher dynamic range than cameras. So we have to make a choice what to expose for. When you say yo expose correctly for your highlights, you essentially underexpose the shadows, this is true. Our own eyes see more details in these shadows than a properly exposed camera. When I talked about the sunny scenario in which you would compensate upwards, I did not mean a sunset. A sunset I would always "underexpose". I was referring to bright sunlight reflecting of bright surfaces (like sand) or snow. This comes out grey if you don't "overexpose". But, essentially, it matters much less on a digital camera, because you can just recover underexpusere in post. Those of us who learned on film had to expose much more carefully. In any case, fascinating subject 🙂

[@LucaAppertiPhotography]

You should never underexpose a photo only because you let the camera decide the ISO. This is not photography.