understanding a histogram

[G Randy Brown]

Howdy...so I understand the peaks on the left display peaks of the darks and peaks on the right are the bright areas but what is everything in between...what do the vertical lines mean?
Are they just different to represent the variance of dark and bright or are they more scientific and precise like with an audio histogram that shows frequencies?
Thanks,
Randy

 

[old man mavic]

basically the idea is to get as close to the middle as possible ,to get a balanced exposure,if you move the EV value wheel on the controller then you will see the peaks move left or right ,as the balance changes

 

[THE CYBORG]

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[GadgetGuy]

basically the idea is to get as close to the middle as possible ,to get a balanced exposure,if you move the EV value wheel on the controller then you will see the peaks move left or right ,as the balance changes

Actually, rather than in the middle, the goal is to stay away from the left and right walls of the histogram, which represent pure black on the left and pure white on the right, where all detail is lost and becomes unrecoverable. However, the histogram is only an average of the entire frame, rather than a specific area of interest. You may be willing to blow out the sky to pull out detail from the shadows, or be willing to lose detail in the shadows to pull out detail in the sky or bright white areas. It is only a reference that needs to be interpreted based upon your subject within the entire frame.

 

[G Randy Brown]

That makes sense but what does it mean if you have say, a big peak at about 25% and another at 75% only (viewing left to right) and nothing in the middle of them?
IOW, if I'm looking at an audio eq it would mean I would be hot on or around 500hz on the left peak and 2k on the right(depending on how many bands)
Or another example, let's say I want to make sure I can get plenty of detail on shadows...where on the scale would I boost if there are 5 sections (4 vertical lines).
I hope I'm making sense ?

 

[G Randy Brown]

I love that while I was writing my dumb reply I got solid answers...thank you very much!

 

[mrjohnc1]

I love that while I was writing my dumb reply I got solid answers...thank you very much!

Good group here, no question or reply dumb! Very helpful bunch!

 

[G Randy Brown]

Good group here, no question or reply dumb! Very helpful bunch!

Couldn't agree more...I looked at other brands of drones (autel, skydio etc) and was saving for a MA or M2P but was entertained here long enuf that the MA2 was released.
I got mine day b4 yesterday but had surgery (hemorrhoid removal) this past Monday and have been a useless vegetable since then.
I started charging batteries today tho and looking forward to the maiden flight this Monday (in a huge empty parking lot) ?

 

[Dale D]

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I'd recommend that the writer revue the many You Tube videos on the histogram! I keep the histogram on my screen all the time. I try not to clip the highs (right side) or shadows (left side). The usual teaching is to expose to the right, meaning, keep the exposures more on the right side, but avoid clipping the whites. You cannot recover detail in the whites if you clip them off. This all assumes that you are post processing and shooting RAW and have the ability to bring up details in the shadows or details in the bright sky.

 

[Dave Maine]

The graph is telling you the relative frequency of occurrence of each of the each tone level of the actual image pixels. If there is no bunching of pixels at either the high end or low edge of the histogram, there are no technical issues. Changing the balance by varying the exposure is a user preference choice. Moving the distribution higher gives a lighter image, moving it to the left a darker image. The actual tonal range of the image will also control the distribution of the pixel frequency in the display.

 

[G Randy Brown]

I did video production for decades and learned early on the consequences of blowing out an image of a subject (almost always people and not landscape etc).
After watching all of the tuts on color correction and bringing out details that weren't seen before I really want to get control of the image and not just rely on zebras to keep the highs tamed so that it can be manipulated a lot more in post.\
Thanks to everyone, I really appreciate it and will study your offerings in detail soon!