Histogram - What does it tell me

My Oly C-4000 has the histogram feature but the manual doesn't say anything about its use. Just you can turn it on or off.

Its a two color display contrast in green and brightness in white. I presume that the vertical scale would be some type of intensity, but have no clue as to the horizontal scale.

Its a cool looking thing to have the little graph move around as I pan the camera, but it doesn't do anything for me if I don't know how to use it.

http://www.vincentbockaert.com/SAT_CON_EV_...stogram_pix.asp

you'll have to remove the little br> tag from the end of the URL unfortunately.

Cheers

James

Interesting, but still doesn't work for me.

I need more of a tutorial with words of one syllable or less.

The article gives some insight, but leaves out alot.

Such as, what does the little graph represent? What are the peaks and valleys? I seem to have two graphs, why? What would I use it for?

Still confused. Am I looking for a uniformly flat curve, normal distribution curve, high on the ends, shallow in the middle?

The ideal histo would look like a mountain, or bell shaped curve, stuck in the middle of the histo. Sometimes this is hard to get with UW images when they are composed mostly of shades of blue.

If you don't get this you can try the EV, Contrast, Saturation controls, and WB to see if you can alter the histo. Those UW filters would cause a change as well.

Thanks folks.

The DPreview article was useful for an overview which really helps.

I'm off for La Paz for a week....