Leaf Aptus histogram-help with the numbers please.

[rogerxnz]

OK, I've got my Aptus 17 and I understand why members have said to rely less on exposure meters and more on the histogram for the best exposure.

One number on the histogram is puzzling me.  Under the zoom control icon in the top right corner of the histogram window is a number which the user guide says is the exposure meter and that it shows the "overall exposure in f-stops."  There is no further explanation.

I might get 0.92 on an orange box or -3.92 on a red box.

Are these numbers the dynamic range of the pic?  They seem too low for that.

My questions are numbered for easy reference:

1. What does the "overall exposure" reading mean or show?

2. What do the orange and red boxes mean?

3. What numbers or boxes should I be aiming for?

Thank you.

[AndrewDyer]

Hi Roger.
I must admit, I don't look at these figures that often, as sometimes a file that the camera thinks is overexposed is correctly exposed for my purposes...
But I believe the numbers mean how many stops the digital back thinks you are over/under exposed.
If you have a green light - it thinks you are correctly exposed.
If it is an amber light - it is under/over exposed a bit, and it gives you the amount of stops from correct exposure.
If it is a red light - it is under/over exposed a lot, and once again gives you the amount of stops away and it will be a higher number.

regards
Andrew

[Dustbak]

Exactly as Andrew says.

Depending on your objective naturally, but it is fairly save to say you should try to get green since it will mean nothing has clipped or things are easily recoverable. With an orange box more of your scene has clipped which is harder to recover, red means (most of the times) things are clipped beyond recovery. Now nothing wrong with that if that was what you were aiming for.

That is when overexposing. As fas as I can recall the same type of thing is there when underexposing but than it is not because things have clipped but the idea on how far you have to lift your exposure. Lifting more means more noise so you want to avoid that unless that is your objective (even though I prefer to throw in noise later if I need to).