PEF's and exposure bracketing?

When shooting jpegs I almost always use exposure bracketing to be able to select the best shot afterwards.

But when shooting PEF's I can afterwards adjust the Sensitivity in Digital Camera Utility 5. Does this do EXACTLY the same as bracketing or is it more like an "emergency correction"?

In other words - How do I get the best quality shots when using PEFs:
* by using bracketing as I do with jpegs?
* No bracketing, just correcting Sensitivity in Digital Camera Utility 5

I am using a K-5

You get the best quality by capturing the best exposure when you click the shutter. With the histogram now we are spoilt in being able to judge this. We can ensure the highlights are not clipped, and the midtones are well placed around the centre and right third area on the graph.

Getting this right at capture ensures the best range of image data is recorded, giving the potential for the best possible IQ once processed.

Of course we cannot always achieve this in one exposure, if the dynamic range is high but that is really a different question...... It should be the aim to optimise the exposure value at capture if the DR allows all tones to be recorded.

We should not use bracketing as a sort of hit and miss safeguard now, there's no need for that with digital imagining.

A K-5 has such a wide-dynamic range that you can underexpose and bring the visible colours back from the RAW files.

I did see a webpage recently where the blogger was showing the technique. Just can't remember who it was.

This nuthatch was originally just a black frame. I pulled back a few stops from the DNG.

https://www.pentaxuser.com/photo/user-11130/nuthatch-30599

Under the shade of a tree 1/125th f/8 400 ISO ..... well underexposed. I wouldn't have got anything at the right exposure due to handholding a 500mm lens.

Well sure, but that's not really optimising the exposure or getting the best possible output, it's really a technical compromise for when the DR exceeds the sensor's capability. A good one, but still a compromise.

Agreed.... Though to side with Algi a little. I would always choose .DNG files over .PEF

Does that side with Algi?

There's always the ETTR camp ....(expose to the right). The problem with that is that it's often too hard to do that without clipping whites.

If you're a K5 user then you're supposed to ETTL!

Here's a video and a couple of articles that you might find of interest...... There are loads of others and ISO-LESS shooting is similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yx8MEDm-2U
https://www.diyphotography.net/2-stops-underexpose/
https://fstoppers.com/originals/underexpose-or-not-underexpose-question-196508
--

Tanks for your comments. I am aware that starting as close as possible to the "right exposure" will probably always be best.

Rethinking my question I can say it like this:

In reality the camera does not store a photo, it stores a lot of zeroes and ones in the raw file. The camera or PC software can transform this to a picture.

If I change the aperture one stop and make a new shot, will the data stored in the raw file be the same and only the parameters for changing it to a picture changed? If so, shooting at right exposure should not be that important.... Or wil the data stored on the raw file be different?

Anybody got a link on a 101 on how to use the histogram?

Aperture is an optical setting, not a software one. Once the shot is taken at any given aperture, that is it .... It cannot be changed by processing.

You are right, a bad example. But how about settings like ISO, is that only a postprocessing thing or does it also change what is stored in the raw file?

Sorry for all this asking. My K-5 (and my photographer brain) has slept for some years where the mobile phone took over the place as camera. Trying to "dust off" now

Well ISO affects the amplifiction of the signal at point of capture, sort of like audio ‘gain’. There is similarity in the processes of controlling this on the camera and later on the computer. Look at some of the stuff Algernon has linked to about ‘ISO less’ sensors, and in that case it apparently makes no difference whether the signal is amplified at capture or later. But this only applies to certain sensors.

What practical purpose it has is questionable really, because shooting at high ISOs has a real functional purpose in aiding the photographer ( eg allowing shorter exposures) ...... if we were to always shoot at base ISO then we wouldn’t be able to hold the camera steady for many shots, or see anything on the LCD if it was a dark scene and deliberately underexposed.

Personally I believe it’s best to optimise the shot at point of capture ....that means the best possible exposure value, and best possible balance of ISO, aperture and shutter for the conditions. The further away from the ideal for each of these when the shot is taken, the more compromises will need to be applied in processing to fix things.

I add white balance to this also, even for RAW shots. But some aspects, colours and saturation, fine contrast adjustments, detailing and sharpening, and of course cropping/levelling are more easily optimised on a computer, with no real loss of quality.

Oooohh are we getting into iso in-variance here
This could get interesting

Nigel speaks of the aperture dictating what you get - which is true, particularly for DoF - but the questioner was after a simple under/over exposure solution that you would get by altering the +/- EV controls. This changes the image regardless of aperture and it does so by affecting the digital record at a very basic level of zeros and ones. Consequently, I still think the original question has merit. You can make that very basic alteration either before or during post processing. The zeros and ones couldn't care less in which processor they are changed. Those relating to aperture value per se remain as they were.

Where is my dustbin lid?

I have an add on question to the original post,
As I never bracket and never use exp comp, what is the difference if shooting in manual between adjusting iso and or shutter speed and using exp compensation, same thing or completely different???

Completely different.

There are three parameters we can change. Aperture dictates how much depth of field we have. Shutter speed dictates how moving objects will be frozen sharp or not. ISO dictates the sensitivity of the sensor and therefore the amount of noise (grain) visible in an image. If one is changed, to keep the set exposure then another will have to be changed the opposite way to compensate.

Exposure compensation makes an exposure lighter or darker by changing one factor without the others moving. So, if the aperture is a set value and the ISO is a set value then exposure compensation would alter the shutter speed.

Hope that helps!