I’ve been ultra-conservative with my exposures lately underexposing by as much as a stop to prevent blowing out highlight. Of course there are situations where you have to in order to get a properly exposed subject, but as good as the dynamic range and the latitude is of the K-5, recovering important highlights that have fallen off the histogram often looks off.
I’m reasonably happy with this next set, considering that they wore white and pink. That’s a tough color combination to handle, with the pinks threatening to go nuclear and the whites threatening to blow out and turn into a unmitigated patch of 255,255,255.
The good new is that the K-5 RAW files are very malleable, letting me push and pull the tone curve to my liking without falling apart. My Micro Four-Thirds cameras (GH1/GH2) would have been less forgiving in post.
For these shots I’ve lifted the exposure in post while attenuating the top end of the tone curve. I’ve also decreased saturation while increasing vibrance a touch to soften the pinks a hair while boosting other colors. I do wish that there was more subtle handling of highlights at the top of the curve.
