Tag: shutter

Tell Me More About Exposure Compensation

An explanation of how exposure compensation works and when to use it.

What Is Exposure Compensation and How Does It Work?

Cameras do a pretty good job of determining a proper exposure for the scene you are about to shoot. But they don’t always get it right. Sometimes the image is overexposed and other times it is underexposed.

Tell Me More About Exposure….

When this happens, you need to override the exposure determined by the camera. If you are shooting in aperture priority or shutter priority mode, you can’t do this by adjusting the aperture or shutter speed because the camera will compensate for the change by adjusting the other setting and you get the same exposure.

For example, if you are shooting aperture priority and the aperture is set to f/5.6 (with ISO 100), the camera may set the shutter speed at 1/125 of a second. If you need to darken the image by one stop and change the aperture to f/8, the camera will compensate for the reduced brightness by changing the shutter speed to 1/60 of a second. You get the same exposure.

But you can override the camera’s exposure settings by using Exposure Compensation. You can either increase or decrease the exposure and the camera will then alter its settings to either over or underexpose the image by the amount you specified.

To use the same example as above, to darken the image by one stop you would set the Exposure Compensation to -1.0. You are shooting in aperture priority mode so the camera will adjust the shutter speed. Instead of the original shutter speed of 1/125 of a second it will reduce the shutter speed by one stop to 1/250 of a second, causing the exposure to be reduced by one stop.

Exposure compensation works well when shooting in aperture or shutter priority. When shooting in manual mode you are responsible for over or underexposing the image as needed.

Exposure compensation does not work in Auto mode.

Finding the Control

Different camera manufactures have their own ways of applying exposure compensation. This may even change from of the manufacturer’s model to another.

Consult your camera’s manual to learn how to use it.

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Read more:

Tell Me More About Exposure
Tell Me More About ISO
Tell Me More About Aperture
Tell Me More About Shutter Speed
Tell Me More About the Exposure Triangle

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Color Management Made Simple – From Camera to Computer

Read the second installment in a series of articles on Color Management – taking the image from the camera to your computer.

If Color Space can be described as a box of Crayons as we suggested in  Color Management Made Simple – Color Space,  what else do we need to know about Color Management?  Well, Color Management is essentially about getting the right colors – and here’s the most important word – consistently.

Let’s spend a few moments talking about the ‘right color.’  (I’m inclined to add, ‘whatever that is.’)  The story begins when you press the shutter.  Let’s suppose you are photographing the beautiful redwoods of Northern California.

redwoods_130528__SM36093_4_5_6_7-Edit

The scene is full of rich browns and oranges and vibrant greens.  We can say that these are the right colors, these are the colors you want.  You set up your camera and snap a picture and your sensor captures these colors, pretty much just as they are (the sensor is playing with pretty much the full big box of 120 Crayons). The camera’s processor does its thing and the image is saved in a file to your memory card.  Eventually we’re going to view the photograph on our computer’s monitor and we just might be a bit disappointed.

Continue reading “Color Management Made Simple – From Camera to Computer”

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