No. Because with digital, there is a better method. Increase the exposure until the histogram just touches the right-hand border, or the highlight warning in the camera display starts flashing, then back off a quarter or a third of an f-stop. Basically that's just the same as "expose for the highlights" always jused to be---just the way how to know when exposure is fine has changed with modern technology. So the new name for a well-known thing is "expose to the right" (ETTR)---the right-hand side of the histogram, that is. (By the way, expose for the shadows today would be called ETTL, i. e. expose to the left. But with digital that's not a sensible thing to do.)
-- Olaf
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I would disagree mostly with what you wrote. It would be far better to:
1. Shoot raw.
2. Ascertain the primary element/s in your composition.
3. Apply EC until those elements are exposed just a bit over, with NO regard for possible blown highlights in the unimportant parts of the composition.
4. In post processing, "normalize" the exposure of the primary element/s.
5. Never judge exposure by the image displayed on the camera's LCD. It lies too much and too many factors like brightness level, and ambiant light effect how the display looks. Far better to use the histogram, although the blinkies that show on the image can be helpful.
There is this supersition that one must never blow highlights. This is wrong. They can be blown judiciously for the sake of the primary element/s in the composition.
It is also wrong to shoot in such a way as to try to effect a particular histogram shape. Every composition is different, and if a comp shows lots of shadow, then by golly the histo will show a profound lean left, and that is okay.
My method says to expose to the right, while always keeping the primary element/s in consideration. Often a great image will in fact show blown highlights. One must not necessarily expose until the histo is just touching the right border...this is not a good method at all, although there might be times when one should do this, but to make it a generalized blanket policy is not really good.
When shooting raw, the in-camera histogram will show blown highlights that are often not really blown until the highlights are more then 1/3rd blown, so there is lee way. This is why one must not back off 1/3 to 1/2 stop as you assert.
The in-camera histogram is based on the temporary tiny JPG that is created by the camera for the sake of providing an image to display on the camera's LCD. This image is severly res'd down and has a dynamic range that is at least 1/3 stop narrower then the corresponding raw. This small jpg gets created even if one shoots raw only.
In addition, it is best to get the white balance as close to perfect as possible even when shooting raw, as WB will effect exposure, even if it is changable during post processing.
