It is time for me to come to grips with the photography acronyms, ETTR and ETTL. Like everything else in photography, it seems, photographers like to mix it up on which one should be used. Also, like everything else, there is more meaning here than meets the eye. That is my kind of subject.

EXIF: ISO 100, 1/30 s, f/11 This is an unintended double exposure. I was practicing panning. All kinds of things happen when I am working on a new skill.

Let’s start with a little discussion about ETTR. Those letters stand for the practice in photography of Exposing To The Right. The picture above is an example of an image that was exposed to the right. It is an illustrative example of our intuitive idea of what that means. The term “to the right” comes from the Histogram associated with the image. You can see that its Histogram is weighted to the right.

But wait! The picture below is also an example of ETTR. Its Histogram is weighted to left. How can that be?

As it turns out, ETTR is not about lightening an exposure. In the strictest sense, by definition, ETTR has two components:

1) The camera is set on the baseline, native ISO. I did have to look that term up. It is the lowest ISO for the camera. In my GR 3, it is ISO 100. In my Olympus, it is ISO 200.

2) The image is exposed in a way that is just within the limits of the sensor in the brightest part of the dynamic range. That means that you get the maximum amount of light without clipping the highlights. Depending on the scene and the light, shadows may be clipped.

There is ample reason to use the ETTR technique when using a digital camera. Digital cameras tolerate under-exposure quite well. Detail can be recovered in 6+ stops in the shadows. Highlights, on the other hand are clipped, i.e., unrecoverable, with only a couple of stops of over-exposure. Furthermore, by looking as these two diagrams that were published in the post, Exposing To the Right, written by Elliot Hook for the Digital Photography School, you can see that while there are 7 stops of light in a digital camera, the number of tones in each stop varies significantly. An over exposed file will always be larger, which means it has more data, than a normally exposed or under exposed file.

This brings up the use of ETTL, which is Exposing to The Left. In this case, the ISO is set to the baseline and the exposure is set so that it is within the limits of the sensor in the darkest part of the dynamic range. Depending on the scene, the highlights might be blown out.

Photographers with film cameras are the most likely to use ETTL because if you use negative film, only a couple of stops can be recovered in the shadows, but 8+ stops can be recovered in the highlights. That is exactly the opposite of a digital camera.

I am thinking about all of this because the GR 3 has a metering setting that is called “Expose for the Highlights”. It is my understanding that only a couple of other cameras, both high end Nikons, have that setting. As best as I can tell, Expose for the Highlights is the GR 3 setting for ETTR. I use it with Shutter Priority. The ISO is set by the camera as ISO 100, I set the shutter speed and the aperture opening varies. I largely use the setting to spotlight scenes. While I can recover shadows, I am not too interested in doing that.

Now for a little color theory:

"Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow,” Wassily Kandinsky. It is also the most polarizing color. While many colors create emotional reactions, orange is the one that people tend to either love or hate.

Orange is associated with:

Creativity, youth and enthusiasm.
Happiness, spirituality (Eastern meaning).
Friendliness, confidence.
Spontaneity, warmth, positivity.
Health, vitality.
Optimistic, adventurous, fun.
Flamboyant, expansive.

The flip side:

Danger.
Aggression.
Exhibitionism, superficiality, dominance.
Abrasive, crass.
Demanding of attention.

Dedicated to Street

Expose To the Right or To the Left?