Raw histogram and why does it matter

"when you have time for it" is the key here and I agree. This is fine for hobbyists and useless for 99.9% of professional photographers who need to nail the shot without EVER faffing about with settings in the moment.

Really? I just can’t see hassling with a spot meter in this day and age when (if your camera has them) highlight warning blinkies will show you any areas of potential highlight overexposure for the entire screen in real time. It literally takes a split second to fine-tune the highlight exposure (if necessary) in almost any situation.

Ok I made that statistic up, maybe you could counter it with endless links to world renowned professional photographers who teach that the secret to being successful is learning how to decipher a true raw histogram using RD and failure to do so means you'll never make it professionally? ;-)

Interesting that you pick up on a statistic rather than the whole thrust of my earlier post about 5 posts back........ maybe it's because I'm right ;-)

Programs allowing you to see a RAW histogram were never intended to allow you to "nail" any shot. And they're not just something a hobbyist or a researcher can use (the implication being they, as opposed to a working pro, can work, um, leisurely.)

These programs are a tool to allow you to see just how useful your camera's settings are, whether you use the spot meter capability and measure highlights or use an averaging method and work more quickly. With Raw Digger you can go back over your shots and eventually get a good handle on how any particular method is getting to useful ETTR (a pretty useful goal) under a variety of lighting conditions. Then adjust your technique based on the knowledge from that information. Rinse and repeat.

BTW, using spot metering and measuring highlights ain't slow at all. It's a pretty darn good way of "nailing" exposure.

Rich

To be fair, spot metering was all the rage until about 20 years ago........

Try participating in a guitar forum and someone mentions Music Theory.

Rich

I would not say that it is completely useless I can e used to understand how the light you are shooting in and how it relates to how the sensor stores that data.
Take in day light if you are metering on something white most of the time you only have to worry about the green channel. It will also give you a better representation as to how the red channel relates to the other 2. If you are shooting say something red with very little green in the scene you may want to push your exposure to the right a little more. It really is understanding how your camera reacts to what light you are shooting at and how far to the right you want to push it

Maybe not a separate meter, but spot metering mode in the camera is pretty compelling. Dial in +3EV at the gitgo, then in the session swing the spot to the very brightest part of the scene, lock exposure, then frame the composition and shoot. Best ETTR technique I've seen...

I've been using my camera's (Z 6) highlight-weighted matrix metering to avoid blowing highlights, but it usually leaves a stop or so of headroom. I'm going to give Iliah's technique a try...

Yep dial in +3 to compensate for using the wrong mode in the first place is an option for sure, until you need to dial in something else for the other times it's wrong.

Why is it wrong? It's a camera control you learn to operate under a particular set of conditions. In other other conditions, you change it as necessary. That's called knowing your equipment and it's a part of being a photographer and understanding lighting.

Rich

A very simple test you can do is take in image under controlled lighting, set you exposure to what you think your cameras histogram will provide the best exposure. then use your camera in body processing but use different setting to produce a jpg and then review the histogram and how they vary.
Next do the very same but with radically different WB and follow again the in camera histogram you will see that now there will be clipping and then no clipping depending on the WB selected. The 1,000,000 question is how can you have clipping with the same exposure but different WB, how can you rely on the histogram of the camera when there is so much variation.

You still have not answered what is the baseline exposure that tells your converter how to place the raw file in the tonal range of the outgoing tiff or jpg image?
Here is a hint this is a built in height light headroom that varies from camera model to manufacture, without knowing this there is no way for you to tell what is clipped and what is not. Some cameras this can be as high as 1.5 stop so the raw converter is lightening the image by more than a stop without you knowing it.

If you don't know what is happening with the BLE then how are you going to know your highlight headroom and your clipping point
The BLE is basically like a built in speeding ticket headroom put in by a car manufacture so that you can avoid speeding tickets.
If you rely on the speedometer of the car it tells you that you are going 100kmh but the real speed you are traveling at is 1/2 that.
Now someone with an independent way of measuring your speed comes along and lets you know truly how fast you are going then you can get there in less time or travel further for the same amount of time RD is no different

Said another way, place the important highlights on Zone VIII.

Is that the techniques you used for the image for which you posted the raw histogram -- the one that showed you left a stop on the table? By the way, I recommend leaving something on the table. If I leave half a stop, I'm happy.

Because you simply don't need to in most situations! Again and again on these forums I'm seeing simple tasks re-invented with complicated solutions that appeal to theorists and that are simply laughable to actual photographers.

I don't understand your consternation. Spot metering is designed to put a specific place in the scene at middle gray, so pointing it at a highlight then dialing in the +3EV to put that spot at saturation is simply an application of the provided mechanics to keep data in the high end from going over the saturation rubicon. Nothing "wrong" with that.

There are all kinds of photographers, and all kinds of subjects, and all kinds of uses for the final work. Many of those do not demand, and do not reward, speed in setting up the captures.

It's a lot simpler to learn your evaluative or matrix metering and adjust where necessary. Sort metering is OK if you want to faff about and tinker. More and more I'm seeing this forum is populated by theorists not photographers.