Histogram: What is it trying to say?

Aperture Histogram (RGB) by tychay

Most modern DSLRs and some compact cameras are equipped with a built-in histogram. Most photo editing applications like Photoshop will also include one or more histograms for you to analyze your photos.

But what is it trying to tell us? This is another aspect of digital photography that has stumped me for some time. For the longest time, I’ve only been able to check if my photos are overexposed or under exposed from the histogram. After reading this article from the Professional Photographer website, I finally have a clue.

Here’s some extract that helped me the most:

What does a histogram show?

It shows how the luminance values in a in a digital or digitized photograph are distributed. The linear scale in a histogram runs from black at one end to white at the opposite end.

What does it represent?

The horizontal scale of the histogram measures exposure latitude, and the vertical scale measures quantity: it tells us how many pixels in the image have a specific luminosity value.

The article also brings up a very interesting point that I didn’t know. The histograms in some camera’s LCD is based on a highly compressed low-res JPEG.

More than likely, the data being sent to the preview is based on a highly compressed low-resolution jpeg using an 8-bit-per-channel version of the color space you’ve chosen and possibly incorporating the tone settings you (or the camera manufacturer) have set as in camera processing parameters.

Head over to Professional Photographer for the full article. Maybe you’ll be able to understand it better than me and perhaps write an article for Photography7.

Improving composition in photography: Learning To See Creatively

Honestly, I’m not much of a book person but for the sake of improving my photography, I went online to search for books specifically on composition. My photos are generally lacking in composition. They are boring and look like any ordinary snapshots.

I’ve seen and bought a number of books on photography which are mostly similar. How to use your camera, what is DoF (Depth of Field), what is shutter speed etc… Fairly standard and boring topics. That is why this book is so refreshing: Learning To See Creatively by Bryan Peterson.

Why do other people’s photograph stand out more than mine? The main reason is composition. Composition can turn a photo from “Oh, that’s nice…” to a “Wow! How did you do that?”. Bryan guides and shows you how to train your vision and “see creatively”. There are many photos and comparison to guide you throughout the book and helps to visualize what Bryan is explaining throughout the book.

There are also plenty of engaging exercises including getting down on your knees and belly to view the world differently. It can be daunting at first, especially if you’re like me. I hate it when everyone is looking at me kneeling down to take a photograph. You can review your photos after the exercises and understand the different ways of “seeing”.

After a number of same old photography books, I am quite reluctant to spend more money on books. I’d rather save them for my dream Nikkor lens 17-35 f/2.8. So I borrowed a copy of the book from my local library, you should do the same too. After only halfway through it, I decided that I want my own copy for keeps. It’s only $16.47 from Amazon! How could I resist?!