PTTR

Been looking into this 'Push to the right' concept and find it interesting. What strikes me most, however, is the fact that it seems to be unwittingly pushing (excuse the pun) us towards a dependence upon post-processing rather than striving towards getting it right at the time.
Like I've suggested elsewhere...is this also the 'unforeseen' legacy of what is slowly and inexorably becoming a totally computer dependent world?

ETTR (PTTR) was introduced as a method of maximising dynamic range of early Digital sensors.

There's no need for it these days IMO. In contrasty scenes I always underexpose to try and avoid clipping. Cameras like the K-5 have great dynamic range to allow aplifying the shadows.

This is only going to get better in the future has sensor dynamic ranges increase

In photography we have always been dependent on post processing to get the best out of an image.

In the days of black and white, enlargers sold in their thousands and home darkrooms were quite commonplace. So much so that as far back as the 1910s some local councils considered introducing water taxes on home darkrooms.

I had my own darkroom from about 1969 to about 1998, when it finally gave way to digital imaging. Now I do in Photoshop what I did in the darkroom, it all amounts to the same thing.

Can we agree on 'there's usually no need for it' ?

That isn't really in conflict with ETTR. Even with ETTR you would underexpose sufficiently to avoid clipping, overexposure would only be done when there was no clipping and available unused headroom.

Yes. But we don't all have a K5. And even with a K5 we have members here feeling it necessary to use an HDR exposure stack which tells me the camera's dynamic range still isn't (always) enough.

Yes. But, ironically, as our camera's dynamic range increases further we will have even more opportunity for using ETTR to optimise results.

This is usually done to make a pictorial effect, an aesthetic choice, rather than a technical choice.

I agree with that.

When we all shot film we would expose for the highlights (ettl) when using transparency film and expose for the shadows (ettr) when using negative film. Digital is like shooting transparencies.

ETTR is fraught with danger and as Smeggypants says, unnecessary.

I don't think we are being pushed towards a reliance on post processing any more than film where developer choice and method as well as paper would have similar results

I wouldn't argue with that. But to turn the viewpoint around, if HDR isn't necessary to obtain an increased dynamic range it isn't necessary at all as we could get an identical effect by tone mapping within a single image.

And I do note your use of the word 'usually' John. Not always, like that nice Cathedral shot you posted earlier?

Partially a fair cop, but that was HDR not because of an inherent shortcoming in digital cameras but because the dynamic range was impossible for any medium. Digital probably would have done better than anything else as there's not a film in existence that would have covered that one.

I would have shot several shots at different exposures and then combined the negatives - in effect, HDR.