Yesterday David Pogue reported that he recently had a private photography lesson with Tom Bear. Pogue, who pens a witty, brilliant technology blog for “The New York Times,” learned two critical lessons from Bear that I have addressed in AfterCapture articles. For pro-level learning, check them out.
• Pogue’s “Always Overexpose” Lesson: “Tom almost always shoots slightly overexposed. You can always tone down the brights in Photoshop later. But if the shot was underexposed, it’s much harder to recover the details that are lost in shadow. ‘And always overexpose women,’ he said. ‘Overexposing kills wrinkles.’”
Pro Insights on the Topic: In “Getting RAW Exposure Right: Making an Excellent In-Camera Exposure is a Critical Step in RAW Processing” I call on the expertise of photographers Richard Anderson, Dan Stack and Michael Stewart to explain that, with RAW files, it is better to err on the side of overexposure. However, if this “overexposure” is not detrimental to the image than it is not really over-exposing but proper-exposing.
The article goes it to techie specifics, suggestions for how to handle exposure in different situations, and discusses how to consider the “subjective factor” of exposure.
• Pogue’s “Don’t Chimp!” Lesson: “Tom suggests being careful to avoid ‘chimping,’ a term I’d never heard before. That’s where you get so excited about looking at the playback of your photos on the camera’s screen that you miss the great shots still available around you. (Why is that ‘chimping?’ Because you’re standing there, looking at your playback like an idiot, going, ‘Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!’)
Pro Insights on the Topic: In “Beyond Chimping: How To Enhance (or Reclaim) Your Strong Sense of Vision While Shooting Digital” I transmit the expert insights of commercial photographers Andy Batt, Clem Spalding and Stewart Cohen, who all suggest that chimping is a form of insecurity that can be deadly to professional photographers. However, they point out that chimping isn’t always chimping — when used in an intelligent manner to improve vision and to know that you’ve truly bagged the shot.
The importance is to know the difference “reflexive chimping” (the bad kind) and intelligent review of images. To help pros do less of the first and more of the second, I offer a practical exercise.
