Photo tips camera settings, understanding and using histogram

.........................................................................................................
HISTOGRAM

A number of types of cameras can show a histogram of the picture, some models even when taking the picture (live histogram). Many of us think 'nice, that crazy graphic, what can I do whit it?

The histogram is the exposure of the photo, shown as bars. It shows if the picture is dark, medium or light with some peaks here and there. It can helps you to review the exposure of your photo, especially in difficult (light) conditions. If you want to understand it, you need to learn which part of the histogram to which part of the picture belongs.

Each color of an image has a brightness value and some colors have the same, because only 256 degrees of the brightness are possible. If you photograph in black and white look, you can see the brightness of your picture.
The horizontal line of the histogram shows the degrees of pure black (0) on the left to pure white (255) on the right. Pixels with the same brightness are added on the vertical axis. More pixels with equal clarity cases a higher line.

Without the histogram you can also find out the brightness of the picture, if you are watching it in black and white. The 'mad graphic' can be extremely useful, because he "sees" your photo in black and white already!

Usually, the most digital cameras take excellent photos without you ever need to review. A camera is designed so, that it wants to balance the photo in all circumstances towards middle gray (RGB 128:128:128). Read more in light and photography - principles.
Bright scenes, such as a winter landscape, can be underexposed (too dark) and the evening scenes can be overexposed (too light). It is very important to know, what you should expect if you look at the histogram. If the results are different, take a new picture with another exposure settings.

You can analyze (and learn) histogram excellently on the computer.

back