Introduction

Michael Reichmann has just posted a new article, Expose To The Right, in which he argues that we should make an effort to use exposure settings that ensure the histogram is pushed towards the right-hand (over-exposed) end. His thesis, for which he credits Thomas Knoll (of Adobe Photoshop and Camera Raw fame) is that half the 4096 values allowed in 12-bit capture will be used by the first f/stop with the brightest tones.

What, Michael says, you should do is effectively over-expose the image, and then use exposure compensation in raw conversion to bring back the overall image brightness to the desired level. This should be done without blowing highlights, so you won't be able to use this approach in every situation, but doing so, Michael argues, will improve the signal-to-noise ratio and, thus, reduce noise and posterisation in darker area.

It's been a rather hot, humid and thundery day today, so I couldn't be bothered to get the tripod out to do a careful test (as Michael describes). I wandered into the garden between showers and took a few shots in Tv mode and fiddled with the EC on the 10D.