Oops, error. Too many late nights. The histogram you show is in Photo Mechanic, a RAW viewer, so the histogram is correct.

I do not think that you are correct above as my understanding is that there is no such thing as a RAW viewer. I might be wrong there but it does not matter to me.

The second part of my comment however, still applies.

See above.

Reducing exposure to protect the white feathers from clipping will result in the mid tones, including the eye, being darker.

Yes, by properly exposing for the WHITEs the mid-tones will be about one stop underexposed, and the dark tones close to two stops under. If you would have stated that from the get go you could have saved me about 30 minutes of typing 🙂

with love, artie

With the greatest respect, I am not wrong in saying the shot is technically ETTR underexposed. The histogram display reflects the in camera JPEG – not the RAW exposure.

I appreciate the respect. You are, however, correct that the image is technically under-exposed. But as I state here often and in DB II, I do not want my images to be exposed with the WHITEs at 254, 254, 254. Those involve much too much work to bring any detail into the WHITEs, and in many cases, it is impossible to do so. I prefer my images to be exposed so that they are practically correct, with the WHITEs in the mid-240s with Nikon and in the mid-230s with Canon.

The in camera JPEG is an inaccurate indicator of the true RAW exposure, typically around a stop at least and sometimes considerably more. Your 241, 242, 244 white values reflect the white values in the JPEG – not the RAW.

Two things here. I disagree with the “at least and sometimes considerably more …” Furthermore, with Nikon bodies you can set the value for the blinkies in the JPEG so you simply cannot make a blanket statement that is accurate. And, the 241, 242, 244 values that I quoted were taken from the RAW file before conversion as the image came out of camera.

Load the RAW file into FastRawViewer or RawDigger and you will see what I mean. I can supply further references if needed.

Not needed. My images look great and my workflow is simple. BTW, are you the same guy that has been pitching this story here for a year or two?

If you expose as you do, with white values at around 240, (whether JPEG or RAW), the highlights are by definition underexposed and all other tones will look correspondingly darker including the eye, the ocean or anything else in the frame.

You are correct there but missing one very huge point: if you expose with the WHITEs at 254, 254, 254 all of the other tones will be underexposed. And the difference will be roughly 6/100 of a stop …

If you expose with white values at 255,255,255, i.e technically perfect, the eye and the ocean will render correctly

The above statement is wrong, but only 1005 wrong. If you go back to the ABP material that I referenced perhaps you will come to understand what is at play here.

but the whites although technically correct, will result in white feathers having insufficient detail.

Congrats. You finally got something right.

The only answer is to adjust the white feathers for best detail and deal with eye separately. So it may be an exposure question, but the answer lies in post processing.

The question is a 100% exposure theory question. The RAW file is dealt with in post processing.

With love, artie