Improving skills using histogram

Hi everyone

I decided to start a second read of my K20D manual, this time immersing more into the details and trying to absorb some more technical aspects of it.

Histogram is one of those aspects that I hadn't given a lot of attention on my first read, but this time I wanted to explore more in depth and get more out of it. Please do correct me if I am wrong but seems that the more experienced ones such as a lot of you around here in the forum are capable of making great use of the histogram feature that the camera has, am I not right in assuming this ?

I remember coming across somewhere, might not have been on this forum though, a skilled photographer writing that he snaps, has a quick look at the histogram and quickly decides whether to repeat the shot or go to the next one, and that way he would just keep going on through a session, so this stuck in my mind and I have been reading the features that the K20D comes along with this aspect.

I found fascinating and extremely helpful to a novice like me the feature that the K20D has that once activated [Bright/Dark area warning] in the playback menu, it blinks red on bright portions and blinks yellow on dark portions.

Now all I need to do is learn to make use of this as after I activated it by going into the playback menu and ticking it ON now when I review the picture taken on the display and press INFO and call the Brightness histogram it instantly blinks various parts of the image with reds and yellows. I am sure this is a tool that I could use to improve my skills so I am hoping to get some feedback and advice from the more experienced ones here so that I can go back and start practising .

All the help and suggestions are kindly appreciated.

Thanks

Amin

Hi Amin, there comes a time, you will be using your display, for one purpose only, and that is a quick look at the histogram. Be sure to set things in the menu, so all 3 histograms show up. (Red,Green and Blue channel). The luminance histogram( showing a simplified combination of all channels, isn't accurate enough. A more in depth read on histograms and all that's connected to it, like ETTR (expose to the right) is found here. Enjoy the read. If afterwards you have any questions (which I doubt) please ask.

Martin.

Hey Amin,

Here are some good reads for you, the first one doesn't give answer fo your question though but it explains the basics of photography very clearly I think. The second one is more technical I think but it doesn answer your question
Roie Galitz
cambridge in colour

The answer your second question.
The parts that are blinking are from the Bright/Dark warning you can set it off if you like. It shows you the area that are too bright or dark to hold any data, yellow is for too dark and red is for too light.
Don't get to freaky that you lost data it doesn't mean your shot isn't correct.

If you want to learn more about your K20D get the Magic Lantern book, you will learn a lot from that and it covers all the basics off photography as well www.amazon.co.uk

Great, thank you so much for the comments. I am going to dive into those links and read read and read.

And Stefan, thanks for the recommendation about magic Magic lantern book, this is the second time I am reading today about this book being recommended, so that definitely shows how enlightening the book must be. Off to order one of those too.

Thanks again for such great and prompt help.

Amin

Good luck with that, there is a lot of information there
BTW we dutchies are fast arent we

Yeahhhh, and nice too...............sometimes

Yes indeed, sometimes
We are quite strange sometimes, thankfully the British can tolerate us a bit

After 20 years working with "dutchies" i'll say one thing.
they know how to party

Shhhhhhh, Let's keep quiet now, and not push our luck.

Martin.

Well the best medicine against a hangover is more beer

Yes lets keep quiet now indeed Martin or else they will look deeper into what we say then we want to
Ze zullen eens moeten weten just kiding boys and girls, believe me

Hey am I missing something or I am just slow at picking up things? . What is Stefan talking about? And then there is talk about partying and beer etc. I am definitely not in tune so kind of lost.

I know I am not quite up to date so please throw me some hint. I thought we brits were the fastest, we have Lewis Hamilton HAA!! .

Amin