Using Exposure Compensation

“Each day brings new opportunities, allowing you to constantly live with love—be there for others—bring a little light into someone's day. Be grateful and live each day to the fullest.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Light is the most important part of photography.  Without it, there would be no image, no memories, no joy in a photograph.  But, too much or too little light can be detrimental to our photos.  Understanding light is key to making better photos. 

Our cameras don't understand light.  They have powerful computer processors that measure all the light coming in through the lens and hitting the sensor, but they don't know anything about the subject, what is important in the photo, or what is unimportant.  The software developers who program those processors write algorithms to take all the inputs and make a decision on the three factors that make up the exposure triangle - shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.  Depending on your camera settings one, two or all three of these are constantly being adjusted depending on the light the camera sees at that instant.  Without knowing your composition your camera can sometimes make bad decisions.

Take this photo as an example.  The conditions were harsh.  It was a bright sunny day with harsh direct light.  The breeze was blowing and the Columbine flowers were in constant motion.

1/4000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600

I was shooting with an aperture of f/2.8 to create a shallow depth of field making the center flower stand out from the background.  The high ISO was to get a very fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the flowers.  The camera saw all the light and decided on a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second.  Even with that fast shutter speed, there was too much light.  Although the overall exposure was not bad, the main subject was overexposed and the photo was ruined.

There are a number of ways to fix this, and none involve post-processing (editing) on a computer later.  If you are comfortable shooting in full manual mode, you set the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO while keeping an eye on the histogram.  My personal preference is to stay in aperture priority mode, where I spend most of my time, set the ISO, and let that advanced processor in the camera figure the shutter speed at that instant.  Remember I said the flowers were constantly blowing around.  That made the light constantly changing.  Instead of setting the shutter speed myself I gave the camera a hint that the exposure needed to be turned down. 

Almost every camera (even some cell phones) has a setting called exposure compensation.  It is often a button on the top or back of the camera that has a +/- symbol.  Some cameras have this setting buried down in a menu.  This typically only works when the camera is in Program, Aperture Priority, or Shutter Priority mode.  By using exposure compensation I was able to tell the camera to alter the calculated exposure by a given number of stops.  In this case, I dialed in a -2 EV exposure compensation and shot again.  I also lowered the ISO to 400 because I didn't need it that high to get the shutter speed I was wanting.

1/6000, f/2.8, ISO 400

Now, the subject of my photo is properly exposed.  The background is now almost black.  That works great because the background is unimportant and making it dark it makes the red flower jump out.

A common exposure problem occurs when the background is brighter than the subject.  By default, the camera will expose so the subject is dark and the background is correct, like in this photo.

By dialing in a +1 2/3 EV exposure compensation I am able to brighten the bird so that details in the feathers and eyes can be seen.  By making this adjustment the sky becomes overexposed.  This is fine because the subject is the bird, not the sky.

The key to knowing when to adjust the exposure compensation is knowing what the subject is and if it is properly exposed.  If the subject is too bright or too dark, throw in some exposure compensation to properly expose the most important part of the photo.

You may be tempted to assume you can correct the exposure later in post-processing.  Don't be fooled.  Parts of your photo that are overexposed often cannot be brought back and brightening underexposed photos can introduce digital noise.  It's much better to get the exposure right when you make the photo than to try to correct it later.

If you find this tip useful please subscribe to my blog to get future tips emailed to you.  If you have questions, feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to answer them.

eBook Review - Rabari - Encounters With The Nomadic Tribe

If you read my earlier post about my photography library you know I love books about photography.  I have books about composition, technical aspects, printing, Lightroom, HDR, and many others.   Recently I've been buying electronic eBooks.   These books are typically not printed in hard copy format but are books in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format that can be read on a PC, MAC, iPAD, or Smart Phone.  It makes taking your library along with you on a photo outing much easier.  Because there is no printing or distribution costs these eBooks are typically cheaper than hard copy books.   Most are also shorter than normal books.  I'm really not sure why.

This week I got a copy of Rabari - Encounters With the Nomadic Tribe by Mitchell Kanashkevich.  This is part of The Insider Series on Travel Documentary Photography by LightStalking.   The title suggests it is a travel book but it's really a book about photography that just happens to use the author's four month long travels in this region of India for the examples. 

Here's the table of contents for the book:

After a brief introduction to the project, the equipment (surprisingly affordable) and the work flow, the author goes into details about each of 10 different photos from the project.  For each photo, he discusses background information, objectives for that particular photo, the light, the moment and/or pose, the composition, the "Biggest Challenge" and how me managed it, and the what/why of post processing.

The author provides great insight into what was going through his mind when he was working on that particular photo. Reading these well written descriptions is like being with him on the photo shoot and having him tell you what he's doing and why.

One thing I was surprised to learn was how little equipment he used.   He didn't have high end cameras, lenses, or elaborate artificial lights.   Instead he relied on a 5-in-one reflector for his lighting.   He describes the conditions he was shooting in and includes diagrams showing where the subject, light source and camera were located.

I found his description of the biggest challenge with each situation and how he overcame it to be instructive.  While I may never run into that exact challenge, his approach to solving the problems was educational as I learned things I will be able to apply later.

He uses a combination of Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to edit his photos.   In the book he talks about what adjustments he made to the photo and how he made the adjustments.  The book is more about the photography and is less about post-processing. He includes before and after versions of the photo.

Reading this book was entertaining and informative.  The photos reached out and grabbed me right off.   You can see why Mitchell Kanashkevic is a successful  travel and documentary photographer.  I recommend this book for amateurs as well as professional photographers.

Rabari – Encounters With the Nomadic Tribe is available for download for the special Christmas release price of $19.95 when you apply the special launch discount code “HAPPYXMAS” until Dec 25th.  Go online and buy a copy.   There's no waiting for shipment so you can start reading right away.

Histograms - Possibly The Most Useful Tool in Digital Photography

We all have one on our digital cameras, but not everyone knows what they mean and how to use them to take better photos. I've written a short article for the Eastman Camera Club on histograms and made it available on TheSiggins.net

It's a brief introduction to histograms and some suggestions on how to use them. The article is available here.