Tweak Your Histogram For Better Exposure for Olympus PenF & OMD ep.03 

You're too kind. Thanks for watching!

LoL! Funny, but very true! I've been learning tons from him.

I don’t even have my Pen F yet and I’ve learned a bunch of stuff, I’ll have to rewatch half of the videos with camera in hand.

I also agree & Rob even goes so far as to individually respond to questions placed on his YT videos. Not many YT video presenters do that++

In late 2020, I fully agree.

You are so welcome!

One other good guy with lots of tips is Robin Wong.

@@franke5478 Hello, I am looking for a specific training video that can suggest, in 1 single tutorial, the overall best personalized custom settings (ie. custom bottoms, curves, etc.)... Anything available? Around the are many tutorials and the one from Rob are top but getting 1 single one to recap and provide best overall tips will be perfect and time saving.... For PEN-F please.

Thanks and welcome

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Wow, thanks!

Thanks for watching!

Thank you!

Thanks. So many good channels out there, I'm far from the bets, but appreciate the kind words. -Rob

Thank you!

Thanks for the kind feedback. I really like the em1x when I checked it out at a launch event.

Thanks, Eddwin. I'm more of a danger to myself than from others.

Great tips! I didn't think about adjusting for the evf to closer match the raw. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you!

Thanks. I need to redo some of these as a photo walk to show real life use.

Thanks. Some of the videos are just my experimenting but hope you find a few good tips overall.

Thanks for bringing this up. I didn't mention it because I wasn't sure if this were true for the live histogram display since no picture has been taken yet to read an embedded jpg from a raw file.

True. The live histogram shows luminance values from the sensor. The RGB histogram is read from the embedded jpg. The live histogram is so nice of a tool for telling you that the exposure can be pushed more to the right. The RGB histogram tells you if one of the channels is blown. I especially check the RGB histogram for red barns and red flowers ;-).

Unless there is a setting otherwise, the live histogram measures what the LV display is showing. Logically, if your picture style is set to muted - and muted is what you see in the LV display, then the histogram will reflect that, even though the jpeg hasn't yet been created. Try this - set the LV display exposure preview mode to off, so that no matter what exposure setting you use, the screen does NOT go lighter or darker. Note that while the meter swings + or - around 0, the histogram stays put, (it's reading the LV image) Kind of useless until the photo is taken, at which time it shows you the result.

Thank you!

Thanks so much for your feedback!

Thank you!

Thank you! I'm not convinced exposing to the right is always best. I think this method is better where you control the exposure.

Wow, episode 3! Oldie but a goodie I guess. I was thinking of redoing this one.

You are so welcome!

Thank you for your feedback!

That sums it up nicely. Thanks!

Thank you!

Thanks. I will do some em1.2 specific videos in the future. I'm still learning myself!

Thank you for the kind feedback! I appreciate it. -Rob

I think we are really splitting hairs here. There is just too much wiggle room between jpg and raw, between the viewfinder and live view, and nevermind color calibration, raw conversion, and final output to print or online. That's why I recommend the maximum adjustment to the histogram, to stay well within those margins of error. Thanks!

Thanks for the kind feedback.

Thank you for saying!

Thanks. Probably didn't know what ettr was back then. LOL

Pen-F is awesome. Love the look and feel. Just wish it had a mic jack or the mic adapter option like on my pen pl8.

Thanks. Yes, you are correct - most Olympus cameras.

Thank you for watching! -Rob

Thanks for watching!

Glad to help. Thanks.

Thanks!

Thank you!

Thanks. I may update this video soon for production reasons, not that anything is technically different.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the time to write in the comments. I greatly appreciate your kind feedback!

Thank you!

Hope it helps. Thanks for watching!

I still don't use the histogram itself much since using just highlights and shadows indicators.

Thank you!

Thanks, Kent. Many have told me they prefer to dial it back a bit. It's great that it's adjustable, unlike many cameras with this feature.

I appreciate that!

Thanks! Would love to see your pics. Let me know if you post them online and where. -Rob

Hi Rob, I just took this photo over the weekend, tried your advice and a little bit of post edit through snapseed. Will appreciate your suggestions to improve my skill. I am totally new in this hobby so anything you'll say will be useful for me. :) I'm using Oly EM10MII and lens are mostly Panasonic 20mm with a little bit of Oly 40-150mm instagram.com/p/BYDusc2hU7u/?taken-by=noel_po09

From a technical standpoint, the exposure looks near perfect to me. It's also a beautiful scene. I don't think I would change a thing in the camera settings. You now have a picture that can be adjusted easily to taste. I can see the subtle shades and colors in the clouds and the shadows can be pulled without any noise. So any changes from here would be subjective. In post, I would push the contrast and crush the blacks. I would also increase saturation and adjust the white balance. Finally, I would crop most of the sky out and focus on the color and texture in the rocks. Again, these are personal/subjective choices. Here's a quick edit I did for reference. www.flickr.com/photos/robtrek/35946102943/in/dateposted-public/ I can delete this picture from my page if you prefer.

Got it, your edits look better for me as well, I'll be travelling on Sept 10, will try your advice. Thanks a lot. :-)

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you for watching and your feedback!

Thank you!

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad those settings worked for you. I may update this video after I get my EM5-III.

Thank you for your positive feedback!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for the sub!

Rob Trek As i mentioned, you are a very good teacher! Its a joy to wach your shows

Yes, I always set my histogram to 245,10. It's a personal preference to help me stay well within the bounds of the cameras dynamic range. I'd be glad to share my lightroom workflow, though it's a bit clunky. I tend to over bake my pictures too. Thanks for watching!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Exactly the same!

Thank you!

Yes, you are correct. Raw is not affected by color space sRGB or Adobe RGB. The LV settings are more a personal choice, but you do need to make sure the highlight/shadow feature is "Checked ON" so you can see where those values are beginning to clip. Thank you for your feedback!

Well, what the change in "LV-Info" is for in the context of this tutorial I did understand, but why there is "Custom1" and "Custom2" besides "Image Only" I did not. Now that I'm playing with these settings (due to your video) I get the idea behind. There should be a "Custom3" to better customize the INFO button in Live View (this is essentially what this is all about). I always hated the menus on my Sony A7 and thought the Olympus menus superior, but on the Pen F there's too much that can be set, and the default settings are rather silly (at least in my opinion). No wonder most people don't take the Pen F seriously. Many thanks that you show all this. I thought I'm beyond those basic tutorials (being a "seasoned" shooter and having some experience with the Olympus E-PM1 and 2), but now I feel like a rookie and will go through your Pen F tutorials to get more out of it … ;) (One area that I think I have grasped thoroughly is HiRes shooting. I was not sure how it would fare combined with long time exposure, but this turned out to be a good thing with moving objects in the frame that could not be avoided, like people in a night shot or moving leaves - they get nicely blurred instead of leaving lots of artifacts; interestingly, light sources produce the most artifacts in this case, even though they are *not* moving …)

I agree with you on the front dial. It should be programmable. Hi-Res is really neat and can be used creatively if one were so gifted. Thanks for your feedback!

Thanks. I prefer it to help me stay within the dynamic range of the camera. You could try other settings, but I like to keep it simple and consistent.

Thanks. You can use these settings for jpgs. The benefit is even greater.

Thanks. Unfortunately this feature is not available on the Mark III.

Hi, Robert. Yes, the custom settings are erased. I do this to make sure everyone can get the same results if they are following along. Many settings can interfere with each other so this levels the field. The concepts are independent of post processing, so it will up to the photographer how to use them.

Rob Trek The concern I have is that if , what is to me, a considerable amount of time has been devoted to assigning discrete settings to A, M, C1-3, resetting to the factory defaults will erase all that work. Or am I missing something?

@@robertcudlipp3832 You're not missing anything, all will be erased. You can however do a "basic" reset that will preseve your C1-C3, but not A,M.

It's telling that the camera can't achieve a normal 18% grey exposure. It may have hit a limit either on aperture or shutter speed or both.

Hi. I'll look into it. I don't really use the histogram directly much since it's hard for my eyes to see. I do know the green area of the histogram is the center spot.

I actually went to a camera show and told Olympus reps about you. They had not heard of you but said they would check you out.

Hi, Robert. Sorry for the late reply. The highlight/shadow settings are here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wnC6k7x94mU.html and to see the histogram push the info until it displays in the screen. Let me know if you need any more help. -Rob

Thanks!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching! -Rob

Thanks for watching my channel!

I'll have to give that some thought. Movie making is a big subject, because now you're dealing with not just exposure, but time and motion. I've made a few videos in my work, such as recording lectures, a business promo, and, of course, youtube training videos. Was there something specific that you found challenging or you just need to get started? Thank you for your question.

I just need to get started, I have never done this before. Thanks

Sure. I can go over a couple of basic settings to get started, limitations, and unique features. Great idea! Thanks for your question. -Rob

Thank you for your feedback! Glad you liked it. -Rob

Yes, I am updating my content soon.

@@RobTrek Great! Thank you so much, Rob! I am very seriously considering switching after 37 years as a Nikoner!!! The Olympus is an amazing camera, grossly underappreciated. Keep up the good work! You are, as many have already stated, an outstanding teacher!

Yes, you are correct! Those settings only affect the jpgs and the embedded jpg in the raw file which is what we see on the evf. Is the other video one of mine? I will need to revise. Thanks.

@@RobTrek ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H2h2F4juJAc.html .....I DID find your Histogram Settings (245 and 10) much better. Keep up the good work......

Yes, same applies. Just remember to keep the shutter speed fast as you can, don't be afraid of high iso. Grain is not a bad thing. Grain mostly comes out in the shadow and dark areas of the picture, so you may need to dial in +1 or +2 exposure compensation.

Thank you so much Mr Rob. I'll try this today. I really, really appreciate all your help. Thank you 😍

You probably have your camera in movie mode. Try turning the mode dial to P,A,S, or M

Yes!

In low light you will see more clipping than there actually is. In normal and bright light you just need to use the exposure comp a little more, but the concept is the same. So if you see clipping at +1EV, then dial in +0.3EV instead. Experiment, but that should get you started. Thanks.

I like your thinking on this. Very logical. But why not apply that workflow at 245? If you begin to see clipping, compensate until it stops. Then you know you're under 245 and saving more data between 245 and 255 than you would if you began compensating at 255. At least that is my contention.

@@RobTrek Oh I see what you mean.

Hi. I made a video on menu settings I use. Check out this part: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zJGQg7ug_80.html If that doesn't make sense, email me a picture of the back of your screen and I can walk you through it. rob@robtrek.com

No, that setting is only for jpg.

I don't believer exposure come is available in manual mode, so you are adjust the aperture when turning the dial. In aperture priority, check in the menu how your dials are set. By default, the front dial should be for exposure comp.

@@RobTrek Thank you.

Yes, the raw file is not affected. However, the raw file contains an embedded jpg file. That is what you see in the thumbnail and previews. So for example, if you shoot a raw file in monochrome, you will see it in monochrome until you import it into a raw editor like Lightroom or Olympus Viewer. There you will see it in it's raw format.

Hi. I actually cover this issue here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BeRw3VUWz2s.html

@@RobTrek Thank you!! You are the BEST!!!

I think for most, choosing a color profile is purely academic. sRGB captures less color information, so it's not better than AdobeRGB for any color related work. It's kinda like shooting a video in 1080p vs 4k. I look a lot older in 4k because it's capturing all my wrinkles and gray hair. In 1080p, I look 10 years younger. So some will say skin tones look better in sRGB for the same rational. Following the same analogy, most people own a 1080p television, so 4k doesn't really mean anything to them. For most of us, all our laptops, computer monitors, tablets, phones, etc... run in sRGB so AdobeRGB doesn't add anything. It could even look worse if not converted properly, which may be another reason people say sRGB does better with skin tones. I choose AdobeRGB for my workflow in Lightroom, then export in sRGB. Thanks for watching!

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I got one follow up question: Does the color profil affect the JPGs or only the RAW-files?

Color profiles only effect jpgs. Raw files are only affected by iso. If you're using olympus viewer 3, the raw files display the color profiles you selected, but the full unprocessed raw file is still there. Lightroom can import the raw files without the color profiles. Even if you set the profile to monotone (black and white), the raw file will still be in full unprocessed color.

You seem to know a lot of color management, may I ask you an question? I'm trying to reproduce a specific look in my images, but I can't get there without help. I really like the style of the images in the Blog www.minimallyminimal.com/. How do you think I could archive a similiar look in my own images?

They are basically adding warm colors and reducing contrast and saturation. In lightroom, start with a white balance corrected picture, then +30% warm on temp, +10% tint, reduce contrast -10%, reduce saturation -10% or more. That should get you closer, then just adjust those four sliders from there. You could go further with split toning, but hard to demonstrate here.

Unfortunately no. I don't think the GX80 has such a feature.

@@RobTrek Thank you for your replay. I don't think it either as I checkt the complete menu without finding anything comparable. I like them both so when I go out I take one around my neck and one in my hop pocket with only 1 (one) glass each for macro the other for landscape. As with the MFT it is not too much weight it is very comfortable and you don't need to change the classes all the time.- Thank you once again. Elka

Only thing affects raw is the ISO. Everything else is for jpg. I got your video, will look at it tonight. Which camera do you have?

@@RobTrek THX SIR. I HAVE OLYMPUS EM 10 MARK 2.