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Histogram and Highlights alert issues


Al Nesbitt

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I am having problems with my XT3 regarding blown highlights. If I set the camera so that the histogram is reasonably far over to the left with no evidence of clipping on the right of the histogram I still get blown highlights in the RAW file that cannot be recovered. I use Natural Live View for the LCD/viewfinder. 

An additional issue is that the Highlights Alert is not working. Even with the image on the LCD screen clearly blown out there are none of the blinking black warnings that I have seen on various YouTube tutorials. This problem is the same whether I have Live View on or off. 

I'm hoping that there are some obvious settings that I am getting wrong, but can't think what they might be.

Can anyone help please?

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Starting with the second problem first, go to the shooting menu:

SET UP menu > SCREEN SET UP > DISP. CUSTOM SETTING, then scroll down to LIVE VIEW HIGHLIGHT ALERT and make sure this is selected (has a checkmark) save and exit the menu.

Try focusing on a lamp or some other brightly lit object that you know will be blown out if you took the photo, crank the aperture wide open and slow the shutter speed way down so that it really will be a very high key image. Okay, the blinkies should be going wild, except in your case they might not.

Push the DISP/BACK button a few times. The display (lcd or evf) should change each time you do this, one time it will be a screen full of information with a small image tucked away in a corner, one time it will be only the image with no information and no blinkies, and one time it will be the image with some information and the blinkies will be there. The screen customization options you choose play a big part in these screen offerings. Having Live View or not, that does not matter.

 One of the display options is called the Exposure Indicator. Turn this one on and pay attention to it as well as the histogram, when it starts pushing past 2, you are getting a lot of white in your image -- okay if you really are shooting high key, but otherwise this means you are starting to blow out the image.

The histogram is a good tool, but using it takes practice, especially if you are using the composite one instead of the separate RGB histograms as they take up a lot of space. Sometimes the blown areas will show up only on the far right right side and they might seem like part of the border instead of being a little to the left where they would be more noticeable.

Also, using the DR200 or DR400 settings, these underexpose the highlights (while boosting the low end a bit) might help get the shot in some situations.

Edited by jerryy
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