[dh4412]

lowell, i really have not studied or used histograms, so not sure how that really works, but i believe you. mainly i was wondering if i just leave the highlight correction 'on ' most of the time, it seems like it would be of benefit more than if it is turned off, the difference in iso from 80 to 160 or 100 to 200 doesn't bother me as the sensor seems great at 200 . what do you think? thanks.

[asp1880]

Demonstrating highlight protection using horrible holiday snapshots, jpeg straight out of a K-5.

This is without highlight protection, f7.1, ISO 80, 1/250 (notice the burnt-out sky):

This is taken seconds later, same equivalent exposure (f10, ISO160, 1/250), with highlight protection on:


Much better sky, right? That's what highlight protection does for you.

Regards,
--Anders.

[Anvh]

lowell, i really have not studied or used histograms, so not sure how that really works, but i believe you. mainly i was wondering if i just leave the highlight correction 'on ' most of the time, it seems like it would be of benefit more than if it is turned off, the difference in iso from 80 to 160 or 100 to 200 doesn't bother me as the sensor seems great at 200 . what do you think? thanks.

But here is the trick when highlight reduction is on it use an ISO under the indicated ISO.
So if it says ISO 200 the camera for example actually use ISO100 and then with software bring up everything except the highlights with 1 stop.

So if you shoot in RAW you can just as well shoot at ISO100 and underexpose with 1 stop and you get the same effect really only you need to manually bring up everything.

[dh4412]

thanks for the image comparison asp; everyone else's input too, anvh, what program do you use to ' bring up everything " part of the problem is i shoot jpeg, as don't understand the raw processing programs too well.

[normhead]

It works on RAW, indeed.

One caveat: some applications don't process the RAW file correctly if you enable DR. Apple's Aperture, for instance, will mess the white balance.

You might want to pass that information on to Apple... they are often pretty excited about getting information like this.. I've passed them files before , at their request, demonstrating various Aperture problems with raw conversion, and they've been corrected.

[theunartist]

thanks for your replies, still not sure about this setting, i've tried it numerous times, but can't really see a great difference in the images, maybe it is very subtle ? i'll maybe experiment with it some more, what i get from your replies is it's for high contrast bright scenes more than in lower light ?

I've fooled around with it but came to the conclusion I just did not like the image rendered even though the expanded DR saves some parts. I found that it "dulls" the image somewhat. I just pretty much abhor burned highlights, so I really protect against them when possible and do the rest in PP. In other words, I underexpose everything by a little; staying left of center on the histogram...

[dh4412]

this is just a subjective observation and maybe not accurate, but seems as the k-5 using the highlight correction setting does a better job of it, than the k-x using the same setting, i'm not really as comfortable with that setting on the k-x , photos don't seem as good as with it off; leaving the highlight on in any situation seems ok with the k-5, or at least moreso , but i don't admittedly have very many photos to go by yet.

[philbaum]

this is just a subjective observation and maybe not accurate, but seems as the k-5 using the highlight correction setting does a better job of it, than the k-x using the same setting, i'm not really as comfortable with that setting on the k-x , photos don't seem as good as with it off; leaving the highlight on in any situation seems ok with the k-5, or at least moreso , but i don't admittedly have very many photos to go by yet.

I'm getting sold on highlight correction. Went to Hurricane Ridge, WA, at 5,000 feet yesterday, had foggy overhead and eventual snowing, but even so, it was really bright with snow everywhere - no sun however. Really cold as well.

My eyeglasses have that photogray built into them, so could not really see anything on the lcd without taking my hands out of gloves, taking my glasses off, even then not much lcd visibility, and fingers hurt without gloves on for any light of time. So really couldn't do much monitoring of the photos made by the camera. Came home, and not one burned out area with highlight protection. zero ev correction. All i had to do for processing was some slight boost of exposure or brightening and it was there. Also increased contrast a tad if i wanted less flatness. Out of 69 photos, they were all more than usable technically, and frankly, several of them looked really great - nothing dull about them.. This pp work was all done in LR3.6. (have to agree with the guys talking about the eyelevel VF elsewhere on the forum. LCD was worthless under these conditions)

I was expecting to run into real problems with snow exposure, and it just didn't happen.