Details highlight problem

[TMG1961]

I have been trying to get the highlights better on my last photos of the mushrooms. I tried several things myself but with no luck. The highlights come out very weird looking. Maybe they are too clipped? I have uploaded 3 raw photos to my google drive if anyone wants to have a go at them. Mind you they are uncompressed raw sony files and each is 82Mb in size.

Link to google drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16orazyZ1mU3hHApGj75G2xywOofvDdzm?usp=sharing

 

[lovitazoe]

I edited one of your photos. Please have a look and let me know what you think.

 

[TMG1961]

I edited one of your photos. Please have a look and let me know what you think.

View attachment 20131

The highlighted parts are gone and now dark. Giving the photo a overall dark moody look. The edited highlights do look a lot better then what i was able to get after editing. Maybe a spotlight on the mushroom, making that a bit lighter would be a good idea. But then i am not sure if it still is photography.

 

[lovitazoe]

The highlighted parts are gone and now dark. Giving the photo a overall dark moody look. The edited highlights do look a lot better then what i was able to get after editing. Maybe a spotlight on the mushroom, making that a bit lighter would be a good idea. But then i am not sure if it still is photography.

Hmm..i guess it depends on your preference and principles about photography.

 

[Chavezshutter]

I've had a look at the same file lovitazoe edited and there is an issue with the shot, as you guessed the highlights are clipped, take a look at the histogram for the photo, I have also turned on the "Show highlight clipping button (top right of histogram window) which shows the clipping in red:



I will still see if I can play with it but I know from experience it will be hard to make it look good since there is no details to recover from those areas and simply lowering exposure in that area makes a hazy, bluish mess. I went through the same issue in my photography and found there a number of ways to deal with it, but before we go through that I suggest you setup your camera to show you when you are in a similar scenario and you can then do something about it before you shoot, which I think is the better way to deal with clipped highlights.

I use a custom zebra display option on my A7iii which then highlights any area clipping with zebra patterns on the EVF or LCD before I take a shot. In the Sony menu its tab 2, page 8/9, Zebra setting, Zebra Display ON, Zebra Level CUSTOM1 (scroll down to C1), then change the setting for custom to "Lower Limit" and the number to "109+", that should set it up on your camera to show you clipped bits. You can also see a clipped shot when you preview the photo you have taken on the LCD, clipped parts should flash (this is a deafult setting). Another warning of clipping can be seen in a photos histogram (which you can choose to see while taking or after when reviewing a photo) , climbing peaks touching the left side or right side of the histogram are a sign of clipped parts. I'm going to play some more with your shots to see what I can do and go through some solutions with you then...

Edit: Ignore the custom zebra advice, I dont believe its available on the a7rii but eveything else is still valid.

 

[Chavezshutter]

Here is the first and easiest of your photos after I used a gradual filter to darken the highlights, leaving everything else alone:


and after a little more editing and playing with presets...



Still playing with the others. By the way - good job removing the grass strands from the mushroom on this photo

 

[TMG1961]

I've had a look at the same file lovitazoe edited and there is an issue with the shot, as you guessed the highlights are clipped, take a look at the histogram for the photo, I have also turned on the "Show highlight clipping button (top right of histogram window) which shows the clipping in red:

View attachment 20139

I will still see if I can play with it but I know from experience it will be hard to make it look good since there is no details to recover from those areas and simply lowering exposure in that area makes a hazy, bluish mess. I went through the same issue in my photography and found there a number of ways to deal with it, but before we go through that I suggest you setup your camera to show you when you are in a similar scenario and you can then do something about it before you shoot, which I think is the better way to deal with clipped highlights.

I use a custom zebra display option on my A7iii which then highlights any area clipping with zebra patterns on the EVF or LCD before I take a shot. In the Sony menu its tab 2, page 8/9, Zebra setting, Zebra Display ON, Zebra Level CUSTOM1 (scroll down to C1), then change the setting for custom to "Lower Limit" and the number to "109+", that should set it up on your camera to show you clipped bits. You can also see a clipped shot when you preview the photo you have taken on the LCD, clipped parts should flash (this is a deafult setting). Another warning of clipping can be seen in a photos histogram (which you can choose to see while taking or after when reviewing a photo) , climbing peaks touching the left side or right side of the histogram are a sign of clipped parts. I'm going to play some more with your shots to see what I can do and go through some solutions with you then...

Edit: Ignore the custom zebra advice, I dont believe its available on the a7rii but eveything else is still valid.

Thank you for the extended explanation. The highlights on this one are indeed too far clipped to get anything recovered from them. I do use zebras, got it set to 100+, the a7rii does not have a custom zebra setting. I did have that set the same way as you said on the a6400. I should have gone with a darker exposure on this one. The background in any direction was the same, so always a problem with highlights.

I think i might have to start using the histogram in the EVF view, at the moment i am not. I tried it before but i find it difficult to see at times, tucked away in the right bottom corner.

I have lightroom the same way as you have.

I will start using the histogram and see if i can get used to it. But also think i need to take even more time to get a good shot and start kicking my butt to get a mini tripod for this kind of photography.

 

[Chavezshutter]

Here is the other one:

That's about as far as I can decrease the blown highlights before its starts to look unnatural. As I mentioned before its best to deal with these in camera, expose for the highlights and then you can raise exposure in post to deal with darker areas, this will give better results rather than trying to reduce over exposed areas (basically expose to the left when you have strong highlights). You can also of course take 2 shots, one for the foreground and the background and then composite them together or use exposure bracketing to make sure you have at least one good exposure in your shots, ask me if you have questions

 

[TMG1961]

Here is the other one:
View attachment 20149
That's about as far as I can decrease the blown highlights before its starts to look unnatural. As I mentioned before its best to deal with these in camera, expose for the highlights and then you can raise exposure in post to deal with darker areas, this will give better results rather than trying to reduce over exposed areas (basically expose to the left when you have strong highlights). You can also of course take 2 shots, one for the foreground and the background and then composite them together or use exposure bracketing to make sure you have at least one good exposure in your shots, ask me if you have questions

Thanks for taking the time to have a look at the photos. So it is in this kind of scenario better to have a very dark photo with no clipped highlights? I will have to test how far i can go with the a7rii with negative exposure and bringing it back in lightroom.

 

[Chavezshutter]

Thanks for taking the time to have a look at the photos. So it is in this kind of scenario better to have a very dark photo with no clipped highlights? I will have to test how far i can go with the a7rii with negative exposure and bringing it back in lightroom.

Yes thats correct, protect or expose for the highlight and bring back dark areas in post. Of course clipping can also happen in shadows so be careful not to get too dark of an image or youre back to square one but I think you will find that these cameras record a lot of information in the shadows which can be easily bought back in post. No data which is what happens when a photo is clipped in either the shadows or highlights is very hard if not impossible to recover but you can always get something back as long as its not clipped.