Late for the party …
DSC_3473.jpg.out.pp3 (13,7 KB)
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As a preliminary coda, I’ll have to honestly note that I only just looked at the RAW histogram of the image:
It’s just straight-up too underexposed. Finding the right WB wasn’t even the real problem. I now find the real problem is e.g. raising contrast and brightness without the sky becoming patchy-looking simply from a lack of shades of color in the underlying RAW.
I’ve been trying to carefully raise the brightness levels using several staggered layer masks, which can e.g. help preserve the highlights while adjusting the exposure of the base layer, or to add new shades and gradients to the sky using layer masks created from multiple different edits of the image.
Basically, the only question that remains for me is to figure out the best compromise between making the image bright enough for print while still looking technically acceptable. Or to figure out if that’s even possible with this image.
As we’ve all shown, the image clearly isn’t unsalvageable, and at least on screen, it can look really great in a wide variety of ways. However, the insight that the primary problem is that the image is too underexposed also gives me some peace and closure, and the motivation to redo the shot with better technical preparation. The hobbyist in me counts that as clear progress 
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Abends, @Ogven
Histogram … It’s just straight-up too underexposed.
Important question 1: does a histogram always have to be “full”?
Important question 2: what to white balance for? Ref: bus shelter at night
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Schweden
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Obviously not, but the RAW histogram of my image is just a narrow pillar of values near the black end.
Nevertheless, you have areas with eroded highlights. All cats are grey at night, we say in Germany 
… and the histogram is mainly on the dark side. IMHO your exposure is good!
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I must agree … precisely because of some blown highlights that I struggled to force into gamut. Experimenting with tone mapping (in my case using the Sigmoid function in darktable) allows for recovery of quite some detail, without paying the price of globally increasing the exposure. Also, the histogram shows mostly the dark end because it was - mostly dark!! Hence @Claes’s rhetorical question 1:
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Ah, you’re right. This prompts a very beginner question from me: Is it possible to use ISO to adjust brightness in such situations, or would higher ISO burn the highlights even more?
The problem is dynamic range so for most cameras you should, if stable support is available, shoot at lowest available iso. Because that’s most often where the dynamic range is maximized.
In practical terms you can:
- Bracket/hdr and merge several images with different exposures
- Blow highlights in a controlled fashion (pretty much what you did)
- Massively under expose and deal with the noise and limited data in post
I think the exposure is pretty good the blown highlights don’t really affect the image much.
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Some cameras offer extended ISO settings. Mine has 100 as lowest available setting, but the base value is 200. In such cases the base ISO should be used. The Z5 used here offers down to 50, but 100 is the base ISO.
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I don’t say the blown highlights are ugly here, they only occure in very small areas of your excellent photo!
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Extended ISO does not provide anything when you shoot raw.
They are software tricks to overexpose or underexpose the photo in development, nothing you can’t do yourself in development of the raw.
You won’t get more dynamic range using iso 50 if it is not a native iso.
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i’m proposing this.