Histogram and highlight clipping in DSLR's

Hi,

I did an experiment yesterday. I took a photo, and my set my camera to
show clipped highlights. About half of the image was blinking as being
clipped.

I then opened the resulting file in software, and asked it. Almost none
of it was clipped. Now the software will only mark it clipped if it's
254 or above (my setting). I then changed the setting to about 245, and
then it really matched what my camera LCD was showing me. This was a
rough estimate - I didn't try other numbers to really pin it down.

This bothers me. My purpose of looking at clipped highlights is just to
know if detail has been lost - and my camera is a bit conservative about
this. I'm losing some flexibility in increasing the exposure because I
don't _really_ know if too much is being exposed. It was somewhat of a
shock to realize that only a very tiny portion of the image was "really"
clipped, while the camera was showing it as half of the image (which
would normally force me to reduce the exposure somewhat unnecessarily at
times).

I don't really have that good a feel for the numbers. Is 254 brightness
that much more than 245?

I'm otherwise happy with my camera (Olympus E-500). I'm just curious if
people have tried figuring this out in other DSLR's (at least the ones
that show clipped highlights). Is this a common issue?

--
Don't drink and park, accidents cause people.


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anl