Using the Histogram for Better Exposure: Exploring Photography with Mark Wallace 

One of the best histrogram explanations I've seen. Nice job.

The comparison of the histogram to grade distribution is BRILLIANT, Mark!! I've always shunned using the histogram because, though I sort of understood it, I didn't REALLY understand it! Now I believe I do. Thank you!

I've seen a few histogram explanations, but this one was was definitely the most helpful and well-explained. Thanks, Mark!

Of all the histogram tutorial videos I have seen, this one is the best! I am less than 2 mins into the video and your classroom example gave me the aha moment. Thanks!

Brilliantly explained. Clearly the best to get started with histogram

Thanks, finally understood how to interpret histograms

Thanks Mark. Always find your videos informative. Been watching them since 2011!

Thanks for doing this video. I'm always learning something new by watching. This will help me out a lot.

A great explanation of this subject. I have seen too many videos on this subject that do not include examples of histograms in various situations. Thank you.

mark is the man! thanks for that helpful explanation.

Excellent explanation! Now I understand much better how to improve my exposure. Thanks

Omgoodness....thanks so much for such a brilliant explanation.

This was awesome, always learning and always shooting! Thanks Mark!

Really great explanation thank you so much Mark!

Great explanation! Very helpful.

Thanks for education, a great help!

great explanation!!

Actually, regarding your video thumbnail, outdoor portrait is not the best example... If you are going after a nice histogram for the whole picture, person and background, you endup not knowing if the person is on the best exposure or if it ends up too much on the left or the right of the histogram... I prefer a thousand times to edit bright or dark backgrounds than to edit skin... So on Outdoor Photography I make sure to use spot meetering on the person's face and deal with whatever background shows or move to a different background, and that may not produce an even fine histogram but skin rules for me, but these are just my 2 cents... Landscape, yes, histogram rules... This said, congrats on the video, great explanation...

Very helpful! Thank you!

Great teacher!

Great explanation Mark. Thank F**k theres someone sensible and coherent on RU-vid

"Climbing the wall" :D What a descriptive way to put it.

Nice explanation!

thank you so much!

Easy to underdstand.. thanks!

Nicely explained pal 👍

You talked about this in Digital Photography 1 on 1 as well... the example with the M&Ms was way sweeter I guess.

Great Great video!!

That's all well and good Regardless of what the histogram says you're either going to like the shot or not like the shot just by looking at the shot.

Thank you!

thank you so much.

Awesome, love it, im a noob here so question, at 4:33 before and after the far right graph is clipped of the highlights? if the middle part of the graph is now exposed correctly, what happens to the overexposed highlights to the right? Or doesn't this matter?

Great video

How to expose black with detail and black without detail? For example what will be reading for hair with detail and hair without detail?

At 04:30, how do you know how far you should go to the highlight?

Helpful Video

Thank you

Where did you film this?

I try to do as your explaination...thanks

Nice explained. Did you take this video in Frankfurt Germany?

Ehi Mark, in situations like the second one when you have room on the left and on the right of the histogram, what would you suggest to do? Technically if i overexpose (without clipping) i am gathering more information, so what i could do is overexpose and then bring back the shadows to their values in lightroom later. In this way i should have more details. Am i correct? Best Gianni

And how much to the left and right it should be ? On tiles it was big hole on right side and it was not ok, then you adjusted and it was a smaller hole on right side of histogram and it was ok and then on other photos it was even smaller hole on right side ??

If you are photographing a white carnation against blurred out dark greenery would it be better to expose the right hand lump showing the flower as far to the right as you can go to get white detail? Then would the dark lump on the left probably not worth being concerned about because it is serving simply as contrasting negative space? Is that logic correct?

Hello. I liked your video. However, I have watched many instructional videos on the use of the histogram and what no presentation seems to touch on is what if there are many darks, mids and lights in the photo and it would be correct by theory that the histogram shows a mess of pixels in all ranges. Does pixel spiking on the histogram indicate error in any one of the main functions such as exposure? Does a pixel spike that goes beyond the upper barrier of the histogram show complete loss of information? If so, can that issue be resolved by shooting in RAW only, in hopes that the information might be recovered through an editing program? Lastly, wouldn't the histogram readout depend on the image being taken, whether there are information spikes or not, as long as the values of the camera are set to suit the proper look and exposure of the photo? Thank you for taking the time to produce and present this video.

Hi, Mark, I'm a big fan of yours. This morning, I was reading the manual of Canon 5D Mark IV and came across this AF focus system. would like to know why different types of AF point have different f number.

Is it true that the histogram only looks at data from the JPEG and not the RAW file? Is this camera specific?

So, apart from giving up on a shot, what would you have done to correct just black, or just white?

Does histogram generated based on the jpeg image generated by the camera rather than the original data which is use to generate in RAW files?

What camera strap are you using please?

Hey Mark , are you back from South America ?

Well that was clear as mud.

we done

So basically when it comes to digital photos, you have to take two photos of everything that you photograph to make sure that you have proper exposure. In that case, I will go back to using 35mm film.

From the thumbnail, i thought that guy was Binging with babish

Great explanation, although it does seem that the bright students with A's should be on the right side of the histogram!

"I'll adjust my exposure to compensate" Did you adjust your apeture? Shutter speed? Exposure compensation? Always leaving information out.

No E's in class? 😂

Histograms are an abstraction. Their whole concept is abstract. I can see the exposure throw the view finder. No need to add an extra layer of thought into all this.

This is all assuming that as a photographer, we don't want absolute blacks or absolute whites. Only YOU can make that decision. Not the histogram or camera meter.