Highlights

[Jeff]

A general question, when you review your shot and the highlights off the subject are flashing do adjust your EV and retake the shot or worry about only the subject and do the adjustments in the pp. The EV etc can be adjusted latter only if you shoot Raw of course. What do more experienced guys do?

Jeff

[sheepie]

Hi Jeff - I don't know if you'd classify me as one of the 'more experienced guys', but I'll give my 1.5432cents worth anyway

Once you blow your highlights they are blown - no matter what you do in PP (even if you shoot raw). I've found however, that the flashing highlight preview tends to work on the side of conservatism (always a good thing).
I tend to go with the Histogram more than the highlight preview, simply because it gives me a better feel for the extent to which any highlights may be blown. I've found that at times the preview screen will show a highlight as blown, and then have been able to be recover it. This only happens when the degree of 'blowness' (!) is minimal.
If unsure, adjust EV and take again - it's best to avoid that blinking highlight if at all possible! If it's impossible to avoid blown highlights, at least this screen helps identify where they are going to be (if you can't already tell for yourself!).

[jethro]

Mine blinks 24-7 what the am i doing wrong? Is it my WB or what?
J

[sheepie]

Mine blinks 24-7 what the am i doing wrong? Is it my WB or what?
J

What's your Histogram look like?

[jethro]

I have no idea how to pull it for this screen
J

[sheepie]

For any that don't know how to use the Histogram functions, check out the following thread (among others)...
http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php?t=7457&start=0

In particular, the link listed below seems to be a really good summary of how this essential too works:

Another good tutorial is here: http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/Histograms/
One point worth noting is this one: The maximum vertical value does not indicate any clipping has occurred. which is a common misinterpretation when first learning about histograms.

[jethro]

Thats some big reading.
J

[Jeff]

Thank you Sheepie. I was out on Sunday and adjusted the EV untill the highlights did not flash. On downloading the shots came out very dark, so I guess as you said watch the histogram.

Jeff