Why I OVER EXPOSE my Photos! 

Is this a technique you’ll find useful?

Also just as info for all, your histogram is based on the jpeg image. Raw on micro 4/3 has 1 stop extra head room so if you have an image with lots of important dark areas that is clipped or close to it you can clip your whites to when hilight warning just starts to show give 2/3 more exposure and your hi lights on your raw image will still be good. This gives about 1 extra stop to your darks Your jpeg will be blown hilights so don’t try this if you just shoot jpeg only

You will find that with the Olympus system that you don't need to ETTR because the system is very strong at retaining shadow detail without noise - in fact stronger than your old FF system. However, the OM-D system is NOT so strong at the highlight end and I'm always very careful not to crush the highlights. As long as I have no pure black, then I'll take a left-hand-bias histogram everyday of the week so that I know I've protected highlight detail.

I used to do that when shooting landscapes back in the day. Now I mostly shoot street photography in Raw and jpeg. Hardly ever bother with the Raw files anymore. Shadows are shadows. Our eyes look for the bright parts in photo’s and clipped shadows just add to the drama. We all have our own style of shooting of course so I understand why this method can be useful.

Short sweet and interesting and to the point of what we want

I expose to the right also to avoid lifting shadows turning into mud if I need to lift them. Peter the guy in Finland made a video tutorial with Olympus how to turn on the clipping of shadows and highlights so you can see it in live view.

I've never tried overexposing that much. Going to try that. Thanks for the tip, Chris! ;)

Simple rule in computer science: it's always easier to take out, than add in.

Man. I love your videos. keep going :)

Great video Chris! Love the pic of the tree roots! I will have to try a polarizer 😊

It made me want to do long exposures again. Great video.

Hi mate just got on to your videos stunning photos mate tops 📸📸📸📸📸

Hiya, I have just found your channel and I am enjoying your videos. It is Interesting for me as an APSC user to see you are offering 36 inch prints on your shop 🤔 Subbed.

Chris, keep up the good work on the videos. They are really well presented and thought out and its pleasing to see your enjoying the micro 4/3 system. I switched from canon full frame 3 years ago and people thought i was daft, but i think the system is underated in terms of what it offers everyone and it produces surprisingly good results. Lets just hope OM doesnt let the side down in relation to investment and firmware updates for the OM1Mk2 and Mk3.

Hi.. I usually Ettr too. May i give you a trick… F9 for m43 is a little bit High..(can cause some diffraction) Your image will be better if you play around f5.6 and f6.3 .the usual m43 sweet spot

Great video!

The camera has no idea of whether your subject is dark or light, it tries to get something that "might work." Consequently, it often over exposes or under exposes. I do similar to you, but in M for manual. You are getting the correct exposure, the one that gives you most opportunities in post.

In my experience, it completely depends on the scene and what you're trying to achieve. There are cases where overexposure works (even well beyond a simple ETTR approach), just as there are times when significant underexposure is necessary to get the right result. Shadow detail's generally a lot easier to recover than blown-out highlights, so it you're trying to maximize DR, it may well be better to back off on the ETTR concept. NR tech (at least from DxO and Topaz) has evolved to the point where noise is no longer an issue (although you can lose some shadow detail, especially with ISO >6400, although such detail's often unimportant in such images and it may print better as pure black). Obviously, one must shoot RAW to have any chance of saving marginally-exposed areas. BtW, I recently got the Laowa 6mm f/2.0 and would highly recommend that lens, as in addition to the ~120° AoV, it takes (58mm) filters, can focus ridiculously close, and other than wide-open (where you can get some great bokeh), you can get great 10-point sunstars if there are any specular highlights in the frame, plus although it's MF, aperture's camera-driven, so you get EXIF data. I thought my Leica 8-18 was wide enough, but there are things I can do with that Laowa that are otherwise impossible.

i work mostly with exposed to the right because the sensor of my panasonic g9 can recover highlights significant better than shadow and because the dynamic range is limited on our sensorsize, so it is not the most important thing, that some little pieces of the sky are blowned out, but i can save the shadows for it!

Cool to see you using the Ulanzi Colman as well, I picked one up last year. We're now inseparable, it's a really clever piece of kit.

Nice one 👍

Have you tried live Nd with the Olympus? I've captured some great sea landscapes photos using it.

do you think you have to spend as much on filters / im just started off so lots to buy but i dont wanna buy twice ? tia

TBH, I am not convinced with this exposing to the right argument. The achilles heel of all digital cameras, regardless of sensor size, is their limited ability to retrieve data from highlights, while they can easily deal with near black shadows. I would still like to protect the highlights where possible. If you were shooting colour or B&W film, the argument of shooting to the right of the histogram ( we didn't have such luxuries all those years ago, LOL ), or giving extra exopure, would have made more sense as film is not that strong in holding shadow detail if severly underexposed.

For me overexposing and underexposing will be depend on the situation. I tried to overexposed my photos during bright sunny day with a bright color object(like yellow) and it didnt went good😅

long exposure shots can you use auto iso?

It is a technique that I've been using for years but I object to it being refered to as "over exposing". It is correctly exposing as it maximises the data gathered when the button is pressed - as can be proved with number theory.

What are the biggest prints you made with your M43 gear?

Ha! I know that accent. Lovely snaps :)

If you expose further to the right surely that means having to pull back highlights more to recover detail in the sky which for some systems is much harder to do than lift shadows. I know I have found that from my own shooting.

Enjoying your channel. Still in love with Olympus?