Week 4: Exposure Results

Ok, what happened here?

So as you can see from the following photo’s the basic exposure mode of the camera doesn’t really expose black as black or white as white.

Black wall – auto exposure mode

Grey wall – auto exposure mode

White Wall – Auto exposure mode

The camera was tricked.    It’s easy to trick your camera into exposing your images incorrectly,  it’s also easy to fix if you understand how this works.  Like we said in the last section, your camera exposes your image for middle gray.  If you look at the middle photo, the color and tone are pretty close.  The black and the white are way off.

Manual alert!

So how do we fix it?  If you want to stay in automatic mode, or aperture priority, or shutter speed priority you will need to use exposure compensation.  For my camera (a Canon D30) there is a dial on the back, you spin it clock wise and it increases the exposure, spin it counter clock wise and it decreases the exposure.  You will need to check your manual to learn how to do this.  So how do you know how much to increase or decrease?  Try to expose for your subject, when you take your meter reading get as much of your subject in the frame as possible.  If most of your subject is white, increase your exposure by two full stops (keep in mind most newer cameras adjust in either 1/3 or 1/2 stops), if your subject is light colored then increase your exposure by one stop.  If your image is black you will need to decrease your exposure by 2 stops, if your subject is dark then decrease your exposure by one stop.  What do you do if your not sure?  Bracket! Most modern camera’s can be set to automatically take different shots at different exposures.  If you’re not sure then use this feature, check the different outcomes and pick the best one.  Remember, photography is a creative process and you need to take control of your exposure.

And, don’t forget about manual mode.  It may not be as fast in all situations but if the light is fairly constant where you are shooting you can take a few test shots, set the correct exposure on those shots and forget about it.

Jason

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