We have all heard about the importance of exposure for photographs. If you Google camera exposure you will literally see 1,500,000,000 hits. Suffices to say, there is no way that all of these are specific to your query of exposure, but still, that is an astronomical amount of information on exposure. I would like to offer a more simplified approach that will instantly enhance your images and post-processing.
Nothing can ruin a photograph more than a bad exposure, be it over exposed or under exposed. Here are few suggestions that will instantly help you be more in control of th exposure and hopefully open the door to more creative photographs.
Adjust the LCD Brightness
The LCD on the back of most cameras can have the brightness adjusted. Usually the factory default is set to bright or a specific number higher than than necessary. First thing is to lower the brightness. I generally have mine at 50% or lower. Why do this? Well if you think that the pictures look good on your bright LCD, the camera is probaby under-exposing giving you a false sense of security and darker images.
Turn on the Highlights Warning
Grab your camera and make sure your highlight warnings are all turned on. Don’t know how? Just Google your camera model and the words “how to turn on highlight alerts.” Three minutes on YouTube will have you sorted out. Why is this helpful for exposure? Keep in mind that the highlight warning is telling you about parts of your photograph that is completely white with no pixels or information. This is helpful in helping you make the decision on whether this is what you want creatively and whether it matters or not. Keep in mind that there are certain things that might be OK to overexpose like the sun, or reflections off metal (specular) highlights.
If you’re shooting in RAW, you’ve got some leeway to recover those lost highlight details later in development, but not so much that you can afford to be lazy about this. My blinkies are always on, and they are a big help when I get distracted by other things.
Use your Histogram
This is one of the biggest changes, in my humble opinion, that instantly helps struggles with exposure. By means of a brief review of the histogram. It is basically all the information in a photographs from the shadows to the highlights and everything in between.
Learning the nuances of the histogram will immediately improve your images and allow you more control over decisions that will change the appearence of your photographs exposure. By means of discussion, there is no perfect histogram. As a rule of thumb, I use the acronym ETTR (expose to the right) without having highlights warning flashing at me. I have found that this allows me to have much more creative control in post, especially if shooting RAW.
Change Your Preferred Shooting Mode
This one is optional, but if you embrace it, it can be a very powerful tool for you in getting a correct exposure. Shoot in manual + auto ISO. Please do not shoot in programmed mode where the camera makes all the decisions for you. This is a surefire way to relienquish all creative control even as good as today’s cameras are. Shooting in manual + auto-iso you are in control of the shutter speed and aperture and the camera will adjust the ISO based on your settings. If you think it through, this is the exposure triangle where shutter speed, aperture and ISO all team together to make the best exposure which is what we all want.
As photographers, we especially should be particularly sensitive to the beauty of light. There is another setting the we have at our disposal and that is EV compensation, another creative option that will reflect in your photos. Hopefully, these options will help improve your photography and with practice will become second nature. I would love for you to join the discussion. Leave me a comment below.