Photo tips camera settings, exposure compensation

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EXPOSURE COMPENSATION

Exposure is the amount of light that needs to expose the camera sensor. Too much light makes the picture too light, too little gives a dark and depressing image. The exposure depends on the sensor sensitivity (ISO value), the shutter speed and the aperture. The built-in exposure meter of your camera analyzes the light and calculates automatically the exposure settings. In unusual conditions, or if you want to get a special effect, you must adjust these settings.

Exposure compensation is also available on the simple compact cameras. How this function works, you will find in the manual. When can exposure compensation be effective? You may need to use it, if the brightness of your scene is balanced, but not correct. Light topics, such as snow, needs to be light and not middle gray. You can see some examples below, when you perhaps need to use exposure compensation:

Winter scene: snow by bright sunlight: +1/3
Winter scene: snow by cloudy weather: +2/3, +1
Big white subject: +2/3
Big dark subject: -2/3
Sunset - or sunrise for more dramatic effect: -1/3, -2/3
Cloudy weather, landscape without sky: +1/3, +2/3

These examples should only be used as a guide. You can better take several photos with different settings. Many cameras present the possibility to do this at once, it is called Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB). By selecting it you can quickly take three shots (usually three) at different exposures without having to manually change any settings between frames. The histogram can always helps you to control the exposure of a photo.

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