Pretty much yeah. The x-trans are iso invariant so pulling up the shadows only hurts at high iso.
You can tell it a minimum, yes. If memory serves, it will only raise the iso once the minimum is reached, unless the iso is already at the highest you specify, in which case it'l use whatever shutter speed it can, regardless of what you set.
That would have stopped it being blown out but I'm not sure whether Fuji files have enough flexibility to bump exposure 3 stops in post and still look good.
You can set minimum shutter but it's limited and Fuji are missing a trick with their minimum shutter speed in auto ISO. As you know with the D750 you can set min shutter to auto and the camera will use 1/focal length as a minimum, and you can even fine tune Auto to use +/- 1 stop of the focal length. With Fuji you can only set one speed and that's it, so if you're using a tele lens it could be too slow and so you'd have to manually change the min value in the menu. Likewise with short focal lengths or with a lens you might be able to use a slower speed and again you'd have to manually change it.
Well, yes. But you won't often need three stops just to avoid blowing highlights. Once the highlights aren't blown, you can start to recover detail by applying a gradient adjustment in LR and pulling down Exposure and/or Highlights. Contrast and even Dehaze may also be worth a look, the latter with a very gentle touch. The problem with exposing for the highlights is that by the time you've opened up the shadows to recover the detail there, they may get noisy or be completely blocked up, although probably less so on the X-T2. That's why I bracket. Ignore everything darker than it needs to be. Pick the one correctly exposed to the right (Google ETTR if not familiar) and get it how you want it, near enough. Then make the other exposures look as close to that one as you can (sync setting, adjust exposure should get you close). Load as layers in PS, auto align and where the main exposure is too noisy or shadows are blocked up, blend in one of the others. Simples! Well, it isn't always simple. But that's my starting point when the sensor won't get it all in a single shot.
A few standard Autumn shots today. It was bloody cold. And still a bit green.
Telegraph Woods I
Telegraph Woods II
Telegraph Woods III
TElegraph Woods IV
TElegraph Woods V
Well then bracket wildly and hope! But really, there's no excuse. Fuji make it so easy, and it's a massive benefit.
The histogram is the only truly reliable tool to check the exposure and I would always recommend looking at the histogram. Whilst EVFs and LCDs are good they are not always a true representation, plus ambient light will affect how the image looks on the screen and it can be misleading.
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6 and 9 stop are quite extreme, probably best used for sunrise/sunset. In an ideal world you'd use a reversed grad for these though. For the shot of yours I'd have used a 2 or 3 stop. The throuble is the rest of the sky was exposed well so would then probably look underexposed so would need to be lifted in post.
It doesn't need to be wet. You'd be surprised just how much light coming off of foliage is a reflection, even grass!I don't use NDs much but yes a polariser is very useful and I am always forgetting about it! And not just for darkening skies (beware ultrawide angles) or accentuating/removing water reflections. For example, if you have wet foliage glistening in bright light, I am told it will eliminate the reflections off those too, if you want. Admittedly I have yet to try this, but it makes sense to me
Isn't all light seen by a camera reflected light?
True, I mean a scattered reflection I guess...
It's a question of whether it's polarised or not, unsurprisingly
Sorry it seems to be this, I must have read it wrong;
This is true and which is why I leave all picture settings on default as these, as far as I'm aware, are most representative of the RAWs. However, I've not fully tested the Fuji yet and only have real experience with the D750 with regards to this.
I've just looked at the difference between jpeg and RAW histograms with the default Fuji settings and it's quite surprising how different they are
Just another quirk from Fuji I'll try those settins from prophotonut, and try some different ones myself to see which most resembles RAW. Just as an example, here's the difference in jpeg vs RAW with default exposure settings (I don't have default and sharpening but I can't see these making a difference to the histogram, but I guess you never know with Fuji )
TBH it's a while since I did a comparison but from what I recall it was pretty darn close, the odd difference in luminosity in places but minor. I never load the jpegs onto the computer though as they're on the second card and only there as a backup in case of card failure. I might check it again one day. You're never going to get an exact match though as there's some weird voodoo magic that manufacturers create with their jpegs, plus jpeg have a lot of information removed compared to RAW.
Agreed. Even if the histogram is slightly inaccurate, it's enough to use as a strong guideline and know that, within reason, you can recover Fuji raw files a wee bit either side.
