Is it better to under or over expose?

[excelglsi]

Which did u prefer? Thanks..

 

[Rashkae]

Well, I'd prefer neither...

But between the two I'd say under-expose. It's easier for me at least to boost exposure than try to recover blown highlights

 

[njangka]

Actually neither is good. Overexposure (clipping) means that there's no useable data left so, toning down might nog reveal the data you are missing.
Underexposing however retains some data, but the drawback is that there will be a lot of noise visible when trying to recover. Cleaning this with NR algorithm usually means loss of details.
In any case shooting RAW will give you the best posibilities in trying to recover both under- or overexposed pictures.

 

[tanjonhan]

blown highlights are gone....there is nothing...

at least underexpose u still can retrieve the proper exposure...when you overexpose, its totally gone....

 

[JerrySH]

under still can save, over more or less means gone.

 

[SilverPine]

Actually neither is good. Overexposure (clipping) means that there's no useable data left so, toning down might nog reveal the data you are missing.
Underexposing however retains some data, but the drawback is that there will be a lot of noise visible when trying to recover. Cleaning this with NR algorithm usually means loss of details.
In any case shooting RAW will give you the best posibilities in trying to recover both under- or overexposed pictures.

Agree with njangka, shoot with correct expose is a must. But if you are shooting RAW, you still have a chance to correct the expose by +- 2 f/stop.

 

[antacid]

i prefer to over-expose...take note, over-expose is different from blowing highlights. the reason is i can pull it back down in ACR and avoid having shadow noise, compared to shooting under and trying to push up exposure.

again, i over-expose, but not blow highlights. maybe you guys can try it. shoot a high contrast scene with shadow areas, and bracket it with -1 and +1 EV. see which result you prefer after conversion.

 

[Splutter]

I like to shoot under with digital and over with film negatives :bsmilie:

Somehow shooting under by 1/3 of a stop and pulling up in PP looks better than exposing it correctly in the first place.

 

[night86mare]

depends on what you're trying to achieve, but if you mean, MISTAKE

then underexposure is better than overexposure

 

[frametology]

I like to shoot under with digital and over with film negatives :bsmilie:

Somehow shooting under by 1/3 of a stop and pulling up in PP looks better than exposing it correctly in the first place.

i agree. same here. hahaha. film got better tolerance to over exposure right?

 

[Churchwolf]

Depends on the subject and the setting.
Generally I try and bracket my exposure anyway, but I generally get better results from under exposure in bright outdoor scenes where I can control the recovery. I find over exposure much harder to control in post processing than under exposure...

 

[qing02051981]

A little bit under expose or over expose is acceptable. Too much of either will cause the image to be beyond repair in photoshop because details are lost.

Just my few cents worth.

 

[madmacs]

depends on cam. canon and nikon (except d3 and possibly d300) are known to underexpose by about 0.5 stop. so usually +0.5 works quite nicely on these cams. for d3 and maybe d300, +0 to -0.5 seems to work better for me. for fujifilm s3 pro +0 works nicely but +0.5 works better for s5 pro.

these are my views hor...

 

[namespace]

For me, usually for indoor i'd over-expose and for outdoor I'd under-expose.

 

[calebk]

i prefer to over-expose...take note, over-expose is different from blowing highlights. the reason is i can pull it back down in ACR and avoid having shadow noise, compared to shooting under and trying to push up exposure.

again, i over-expose, but not blow highlights. maybe you guys can try it. shoot a high contrast scene with shadow areas, and bracket it with -1 and +1 EV. see which result you prefer after conversion.

You are right, overexposure is not the same as blowing highlights, although if you mistakenly blow your highlights, then too bad. Bringing up an underexposed picture will introduce noise, as compared to bringing down an overexposed picture. Note that for either case, once you clip the highlights or shadows, it's really gone case.

 

[zcf]

low ISO underexpose, as can easily bring up underexpose shots without much noise. High ISO overexpose, to reduce the noise.

 

[miketre]

I tend to expose to the right of the histogram, but not to the extent of clipping.

 

[stupidbloke]

hey i dunno if you guys heard of this technique whereby, to shoot over expose i think by one stop then bringing it down later in ps. this is to allow the use of high iso to get in background detail and at the same time removing or at least seriously reducing noise. although not sure if u must shoot raw for this one...i think if u control can still shoot jpeg

 

[calebk]

hey i dunno if you guys heard of this technique whereby, to shoot over expose i think by one stop then bringing it down later in ps. this is to allow the use of high iso to get in background detail and at the same time removing or at least seriously reducing noise. although not sure if u must shoot raw for this one...i think if u control can still shoot jpeg

You can shoot JPG if you are super confident of not clipping your highlights.

 

[zac08]

Rather under than over....