p.1 #5 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
"Of course, the electronic viewfinder is superior for judging exposure"
I'm not sure about this. With the electronic viewfinder, highlights are clipped to what can be reproduced in a JPEG image, so you have less feel for how much to underexpose if strong highlights are present.
p.1 #6 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
AcuteShadows wrote:
"Of course, the electronic viewfinder is superior for judging exposure"
I'm not sure about this. With the electronic viewfinder, highlights are clipped to what can be reproduced in a JPEG image, so you have less feel for how much to underexpose if strong highlights are present.
I agree that the EVF, while useful for judging overall exposure, cannot be relied upon to see whether or not bright highlights will be unrecoverable on the raw file. However, the EVF allows for, and provides, a live histogram that is very useful for highlight control. No such capability has ever been provided for an OVF.
p.1 #7 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
AcuteShadows wrote:
"Of course, the electronic viewfinder is superior for judging exposure"
I'm not sure about this. With the electronic viewfinder, highlights are clipped to what can be reproduced in a JPEG image, so you have less feel for how much to underexpose if strong highlights are present.
And? With an OVF, what options did you have?
Oh right, looking at the histogram and the same zebras or blinkers you can set on mirrorless.
The EVF WYSIWYG approach is far faster and more accurate given that every digital camera falls short in using a JPEG to generate feedback.
p.1 #8 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
Keith B. wrote:
I agree that the EVF, while useful for judging overall exposure, cannot be relied upon to see whether or not bright highlights will be unrecoverable on the raw file. However, the EVF allows for, and provides, a live histogram that is very useful for highlight control. No such capability has ever been provided for an OVF.
But the histogram only tells you what you see on the EVF anyway, as it is based on the JPEG data of the image shown by the EVF. The histogram does not show the critical highlights that are outside of the dynamic range of the JPEG representation.
p.1 #10 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
RoamingScott wrote:
Use an EVF for a month or two and you'll know what is a real clipped highlight and what isn't. You adapt very very quickly.
You couldn't pay me to use an OVF again.
That is absolutely right. Even though things like the zebras or other tools don't indicate directly what will be clipped and what won't, there is a very basic correspondence between how much you can push the histogram or zebras and how much you can recover. So it's quite easy to judge with such tools how far you can go with the detail you want preserved.
p.1 #12 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
JasonTheBirder wrote:
That is absolutely right. Even though things like the zebras or other tools don't indicate directly what will be clipped and what won't, there is a very basic correspondence between how much you can push the histogram or zebras and how much you can recover. So it's quite easy to judge with such tools how far you can go with the detail you want preserved.
So the way to go about in with an EVF is to reduce exposure (by using exposure compensation) to check at which point clipped areas (i.e. areas out of JPEG dynamic range) disappear or almost disappear, and then, if appropriate, raise exposure again to achieve the best overall compromise between shadows and highlights?
p.1 #13 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
AcuteShadows wrote:
So the way to go about in with an EVF is to reduce exposure (by using exposure compensation) to check at which point clipped areas (i.e. areas out of JPEG dynamic range) disappear or almost disappear, and then, if appropriate, raise exposure again to achieve the best overall compromise between shadows and highlights?
I often shoot difficult dynamic subjects, such as dancers on very dark backgrounds with quickly changing light. No time to check histogram and no opportunity to reshoot. That fleeting moment of grace is gone forever.
On the Nikon bodies the subject recognition influences the exposure which makes it way more reliable than with DSLRs. It tries to expose the face correctly.
It’s rare that I need to apply exposure compensation.
So the EVF/mirrorless pipeline does help get a feel for the correctness of the exposure but that isn’t as important as the help it provides to get it very close to right way more often than on DSLRs.
p.1 #14 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
bernardl wrote:
I often shoot difficult dynamic subjects, such as dancers on very dark backgrounds with quickly changing light. No time to check histogram and no opportunity to reshoot. That fleeting moment of grace is gone forever.
On the Nikon bodies the subject recognition influences the exposure which makes it way more reliable than with DSLRs. It tries to expose the face correctly.
It’s rare that I need to apply exposure compensation.
So the EVF/mirrorless pipeline does help get a feel for the correctness of the exposure but that isn’t as important as the help it provides to get it very close to right way more often than on DSLRs.
In the majority of cases that I am encountering, the subject (if it is a somewhat larger but still distince single element of the image) is almost always within the dynamic range. For exposure compensation (or sometimes working with fixed exposure if light does not change), I'm looking at shadows and highlights that are often at the periphery and are not targeted by subject recognition algorithms.
Of course, things are very different when you need to use images straight out of camera or if the available dynamic range is so small that you need to get the subject correctly exposed, disregarding the rest of the image.
p.1 #16 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
AcuteShadows wrote:
In the majority of cases that I am encountering, the subject (if it is a somewhat larger but still distince single element of the image) is almost always within the dynamic range. For exposure compensation (or sometimes working with fixed exposure if light does not change), I'm looking at shadows and highlights that are often at the periphery and are not targeted by subject recognition algorithms.
Of course, things are very different when you need to use images straight out of camera or if the available dynamic range is so small that you need to get the subject correctly exposed, disregarding the rest of the image....Show more →
Indeed, yes. The target changes dramatically depending on subject.
If I shoot landscape with my GFX-100II I try very hard to optimize exposure and capture as much data as possible across the frame taking into account the non specular highlight areas when I want to retain information, typically the sky.
If I shoot humans or other time sensitive subjects, then that concern mostly disappears and I focus on exposing the subject well, which the camera does superbly in 99.5% of the time when it recognizes a subject. That indeed often results in overblown backgrounds but that rarely is an issue with Nikon bodies. I sometimes correct for this a bit, if I feel that the background plays an important role in the image, under exposing for the subject, but I do this less and less.
The challenge is sometimes when the camera looses awareness of the subject, for whatever reasons, and then switches back to a regular scene "matrix" exposure.
p.1 #17 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
You can create a custom picture control that turns extreme highlights black. Works very well as an EVF highlight clipping indicator in lieu of zebras. Yes, it isn’t a perfect representation of what is happening in RAW, but it is close and useful. Of course it is absolutely not useful if you were hoping to use out of camera JPEGs! And of course you are then using a very flat profile as well.
Anyway, as someone else said, I’ll never use an OVF again.
p.1 #18 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
Yeah i'm making a similar switch from using a D500 but to a Z6iii.
What i wish nikon would make is option for review to be ONLY the rear screen and the OVF to automatically go to Liveview like an OVF is. I need review on but i dislike having to keep pressing a button to turn the review off in the EVF to go live.
p.1 #19 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
kwalsh wrote:
You can create a custom picture control that turns extreme highlights black. Works very well as an EVF highlight clipping indicator in lieu of zebras. Yes, it isn’t a perfect representation of what is happening in RAW, but it is close and useful. Of course it is absolutely not useful if you were hoping to use out of camera JPEGs! And of course you are then using a very flat profile as well.
Anyway, as someone else said, I’ll never use an OVF again.
I personally find using the Flat picture control with the histogram enabled is far less distracting and gets me very close to an accurate preview of the RAW exposure. It would be nice if Nikon just enabled zebras without all the workarounds.
p.1 #20 · Article on moving from Nikon F to Nikon Z
RoamingScott wrote:
I personally find using the Flat picture control with the histogram enabled is far less distracting and gets me very close to an accurate preview of the RAW exposure. It would be nice if Nikon just enabled zebras without all the workarounds.
Yep. And made the histograms or zebras actually based on RAW data and not JPEGs.
