Basic Exposure Techniques
Posted on August 12, 2009
Filed Under Camera Problems, Canon Problems | Leave a Comment
When you take your photographs, good lighting should be a priority. This is because bad lighting will obscure the photo’s subjects and composition, leaving little to be appreciated. It has this power to ruin a good image and make it useless, but it also has the power to make an ordinary photo, a great work of art. That’s why the camera should be set to collect the correct amount of light.
During the capture of a single photograph, the photographic medium (film or digital sensor) is allowed to gather a certain amount of light indicated by its exposure. Correct exposure is not fixed value, as it depends on many variable including the photographer’s taste and the photograph’s elements. However, it is safe to say that there’s an acceptable exposure and an unacceptable exposure. Unaccepted exposures are, in general, due to a mistake rather than a photographer’s intention.
Low lighting conditions require high exposures to allow more light into the sensor, brightening up the final photograph. If less exposure is used, the photograph will become darker as a result of the underexposure. As for bright light conditions, low exposure will be enough to gather sufficient amount of light to produce a photo with good lighting. If more exposure is used, the photograph will become too bright with many blown highlights.
The camera controls the exposure through shutter speed and aperture. Shutter speed determines how long the sensor will be exposed to light. The faster the shutter speed is, the less light will get to the sensor. On the other hand, aperture controls the degree of openness of the lens. Logically, a wide aperture is used to get more exposure, while a narrow one is used for less exposure. ISO speeds also affect the degree of exposure. At high speeds, the camera will collect light faster and will amplify the sensitivity of the sensor, but will add noise to the photo.
In manual exposure mode, aperture and shutter speed are usually set independently. As for automatic exposure settings, the camera will determine the degree of exposure needed according to the light metering technique used. Exposure compensation is a method of adjusting the exposure by adding fixed exposure values, which is also very useful for camera owners who don’t have manual exposure settings.
In case of extreme lighting conditions, it will be difficult to all cameras (including DSLRs) to get acceptable exposure for all shadows and highlights. High Dynamic Range (HDR?) photography, which employs capturing the same photograph at different exposures, is used in this case to solve this problem.
A good approach to learn more about exposure is to look at the exposure settings of your previous photographs, and compare them Look especially at photographs that you feel are not well exposed, and try to figure out what went wrong. As a result, you will get a clearer idea on how exposure can impact your photos.
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