What About Exp Comp?

My blog about using Vivid in Picture Control brought in some interesting questions. The first one I want to address is what about exposure compensation, why not just use that rather than switching to Vivid? The main reason I didn’t use exposure compensation to obtain the contrast I wanted because that just moves the curve, doesn’t alter it. Sliding the curve up or down doesn’t change the relationship between black and white. I wanted to alter that relationship even slightly which is what was accomplished by going to Vivid. For my taste (which might not match yours which is fine), I’m not satisfied with just a “brighter” image. The upper image is 0 exp comp, the bottom image is +.5 Exp Comp.

A number of folks threw out the “why don’t you just set it in post” or “isn’t it the same so just set it in post” or “fix it later” which is always my favorite. Since it’s Raw, can’t you do that? Of course you can and in fact, it’s your photography, you can do whatever you like which is one of the greatest things about photography. Personally, I take the time to set all the settings in the camera because the camera is still the best processor of our images and that includes Raw. The camera does not process the Raw file in camera but does create the Instruction Set that programs like NX2 use to first generate an accurate preview of your image and then if you do just a Save As (and not change settings because you screwed up at capture), the Raw file is finished using those settings set in the camera. And lastly I’m a photographer and take great pride and challenge in being a craftsman. It’s an old fashion thing I’m told.