Confused by HISTOGRAMS? Photography tutorial for beginners.
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- A camera's histogram can seem really confusing when you're first getting started in photography or videography, but a histogram is a great tool for getting a high-quality exposure, particularly for photography. In this beginner's guide to understanding your histogram, we're talking about what a histogram even is; why you should care about histograms; how to understand the different types of histograms; how they're useful for exposing your shots; and even how histograms can lie to you sometimes.
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Introduction
0:34 - Why Are We Talking About Histograms?
1:15 - What Is A Histogram?
1:51 - Generic Histogram Examples
3:23 - Why This Matters For Photography
3:57 - Camera Histograms Explained
8:37 - Photography Histogram Examples
11:49 - Getting Better Exposures
13:22 - Don't Listen To This Advice
14:31 - Histograms Can Lie!
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#histograms #photography #foxandlens
Apologies for some of the strange microphone crackling in parts of this video. PSA: Make sure your mic is always plugged in the whole way before recording! 🤦♂️🤣
And here's the other video I mentioned in this video: czcams.com/video/3LJAqQCGO2I/video.html
Now i understand why my whites are clipping in camera, but not in lightroom with my raws. You have great technical knowledge dude. And you explain thing really nicely. More follower deserved for sure !
Underrated tutorial
Appreciate it, David!
Super useful, I never thought about the histogram as a statistical tool but it makes a lot of sense. Thanks Dan!
Glad it helped!
New favorite CZcams channel so much information I been looking for ! Thank you
Dan the man, love you bro!
Nicely done!
That was great thanks!
Excellent explanation regarding Histogram.
Thanks! Glad it helped!
Best thing is to use RGB histogram, try to get most of all three colors and you will never miss exposure.
Best explanation of a histogram I’ve heard. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
That was once again a really interesting video 👍🏻
Glad you think so!
Learned a lot on this one Dan, but then again, I always do. Thanks, man. 🙏🏽
Glad it was helpful! Any other topics like this I should cover?
Such a smart guy. Thank you!
Sure thing! Glad it helped!
Thanks Dan this is a great help. 👍
Glad to hear it. You're welcome!
great video, thanks!
You bet!
Great video. Really broke down histograms well!
You mentioned that most people suggest to keep a histogram balanced and not too into the blacks or whites, but I understand that this is subjective too. So as a beginner, should we try to aim for the middle and then edit later in a photo editing app or should we try to adjust on the camera first? Still a bit unclear here.
Thanks for the feedback! A good suggestion for a future video about exposure which I was intentionally avoiding in this video so I could not confuse histograms for folks 🤣
The short (non-snarky) answer is "it depends." It depends on things like the kind of camera you have, how its sensor performs, what kind of scene it is, what you are prioritizing, etc. It's definitely a bit more nuanced, but if you shoot in RAW, then yes you have a lot more latitude to make some of these decisions at your computer rather than in the field. So a good initial place to start is to look at your scene and decide what you care about more if you have to choose between your highlights and shadows. Try to see what you can capture first without clipping your highlights and shadows. If you can't get the full dynamic range, then you're going to have to choose. Or fall upon more advanced techniques like exposure bracketing. Generally speaking, if you're using a modern digital camera, it's best to ETTR or "expose to the right" because of how the sensors work, meaning that you expose as much to the right of your histogram as you can without blowing out your highlights. Then reduce your exposure in post. While this seems counterintuitive, you'll get the cleanest image this way. BUT, like I said in the video, you may not care about the highlights in a particular scene and protecting your shadows may be the priority. Or if you're in a really dark scene, raising your exposure too much will add lots of noise. So there's no concrete "rule of thumb" here, just considerations and compromises.
I re read your question and just realized that I missed responding to part of it. Apologies!
While you have a lot of latitude in post processing with a RAW file, have the camera do as much of the heavy lifting as possible. So getting it "right" (as close as you can) in camera first is a good way to get started. This will also help you understand the limitations of your gear more quickly.
How does a histogram help? I can see the picture with my own eyes without jacking around with a stupid histogram.
Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't watch it 😉