question on english.

Hi. I am reading an article regarding photography and there are some sentences I can not understand.
Could you explain what it means?
It goes as below;

"I tend to be very conservative when it comes to exposure, dividing the dynamic range of a camera into “paycheck stops” and “gravy stops.” Paycheck stops are the zones upon which you can reliably place information that will definitely be reflected in a normally graded final image, and which won’t cost you your job when something that’s supposed to be visible there doesn’t show up in dailies."

The underlined part is where I need your help. English is not my first language.
Thanks for your help.

This is more American than English... But I sense the writer is a Journalist. As he refers to "dailies" which is slang for newspapers.

No, it's not about a newspaper, it's about the initially developed shots (like your 2MP JPGs when shooting RAW+JPEG) - they're proofs to show that you have everything you want or not as the case may be.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailies

I don't like the phrasing in the text at all, it's probably a verbatim quote. Got the source?

I'd argue paycheck stops are those where information most definitely is, even if it doesn't necessarily appear that way in the initial shot (i.e. underexposing with a K5 because you KNOW that you can grab so much detail from the shadows it's not funny) - so essentially trying to make sure that the exposure is close rather than perfect.

Which is what RAW is all about.

Does this help? (and yes, it is definitely an American speaking)

Bret

"This is more American than English... But I sense the writer is a Journalist. As he refers to "dailies" which is slang for newspapers."

Not to further cloud the issue, but wasn't "dailies" also used to describe the unedited footage shot day by day on movie lots?

Now ... what are gravy stops?

(1) I don't take chances with my exposures, and look for the "Safe" easy shots.
(2) Paycheck stops means "Acceptable exposure", "Gravy shots" means "perfectly exposed"
(3) Won't get you fired as a pro photographer because you blew the highlights or shadows on a routine shot.

Thanks for your replies.
For more information I add this from the article,

"Gravy stops are the zones that will probably show up but that I don’t personally count on: if they are there, great; if not, but I don’t rely on them."

This is the title of the article: Next Stop: The Last Stop! RED MX Latitude Tests(2) by Art Adams.

Thanks.

I think it is time to learn English from somebody else. ANYBODY else...lol!

I would look for an article in plain Enblish. This guy obviously cannot commnicate ideas very well.

Dave

Sounds like some clown who probably doesn't even know you should
take the lens cap off

It would be very hard to put into practice even using the zone
system. Safest way to make sure that you have the important stuff
is meter off a graycard or use an incident lightmeter