Exposure help.

spav

I'm at that stage in learning photography where I don't want to rely on auto settings on my camera, but I don't fully understand the manual settings.

My latest issue is with exposure. I was on hols recently and it was very bright most of the time, meaning that a lot of the time the skies were blown out - I was using the highlight thing ('blinkies') when viewing the shots on the back of the camera to tell me when the shot was overexposed.

Anyway, I used the exposure compensation to sort this out, and that stopped the blinkies. However, when I got home the majority of my shots were too dark. Most could be saved in pp, but I've lost a certain amount of vibrancy.

Here's an example - I upped the exposure comp til there were no more blown out bits, but now (even after a bit of pp) it's still a little muddy.



Can anyone recommend any guides that could help me, or better yet offer a few pointers? The problem seems to be a lot worse since I've been getting to grips with a new lens (Sigma 18-200), and I suspect the real gap in my knowledge is in my understanding of how apertures really work in relation to exposure.

Thanks in advance, and apologies for the long winded post.

pixbyjohn

Understanding Exposure revised edition by Bryan Peterson
I would highly recommend this book, simple explanations.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=understanding+exposure+bryan+peterson&x=12&y=18

spav

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Understanding Exposure revised edition by Bryan Peterson
I would highly recommend this book, simple explanations.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=understanding+exposure+bryan+peterson&x=12&y=18

That seems to be exactly what I'm looking for - thanks!

daycent

Also, shooting in RAW will make things an awful lot easier. Lot more scope for adjustment of exposure in PP.

Anouilh

Some basic tips:

http://photo.net/learn/basic-photo-tips/aperture-shutterspeed-iso/

AnCatDubh

definately get the good book mentioned above - an easy read and explains the theory (at a reasonable basic level - watch out for the childlike metaphors)

while you are waiting for it to arrive - have a quick read here for a summary. But DO get the book.

I've recently came across a piece written somewhere (can't recall where) discussing exposure compensation and basically if I got the point of the piece was that shooting manual and exposure compensation doesn't really work together. The point of what I was reading is that exposure compensation is for the other program modes such as aperture priority. While in manual mode, you are actually controlling the exposure yourself so any compensation is done by adjusting the parameters of the exposure triangle (ISO, Shutter, and Aperture).

Basically, with your manual mode shooting - you are making choices as to what YOU want in the final image - you are deciding on an aperture, an ISO, and a shutter speed. You are guided by the meter (either in camera or handheld) as to what a proper exposure is and you then use your intuition and experience to decide what you want in the final output - or if experienced enough, throw caution to the wind and work directly off your knowledge of what the appropriate settings will be. With digital you are getting immediate feedback so you can play with the settings in manual and go from complete blackness to complete whiteness and everything between.

spav

AnCatDubh wrote: »

definately get the good book mentioned above - an easy read and explains the theory (at a reasonable basic level - watch out for the childlike metaphors)

while you are waiting for it to arrive - have a quick read here for a summary. But DO get the book.

I've recently came across a piece written somewhere (can't recall where) discussing exposure compensation and basically if I got the point of the piece was that shooting manual and exposure compensation doesn't really work together. The point of what I was reading is that exposure compensation is for the other program modes such as aperture priority. While in manual mode, you are actually controlling the exposure yourself so any compensation is done by adjusting the parameters of the exposure triangle (ISO, Shutter, and Aperture).

Basically, with your manual mode shooting - you are making choices as to what YOU want in the final image - you are deciding on an aperture, an ISO, and a shutter speed. You are guided by the meter (either in camera or handheld) as to what a proper exposure is and you then use your intuition and experience to decide what you want in the final output - or if experienced enough, throw caution to the wind and work directly off your knowledge of what the appropriate settings will be. With digital you are getting immediate feedback so you can play with the settings in manual and go from complete blackness to complete whiteness and everything between.

Thanks for that, it's a really useful article. I've ordered the book too.

Going off that, I think I need to experiment with ISO more - I'm guilty of picking a setting (100 in good light, something like 640 indoors) and sticking with it. I alse tend to leave the camera in Aperture priority mode a bit too much - looks like it's time to be brave and turn the dial another click...

Ballyman

You also need to understand that your camera (and not only yours but all digital cameras) cannot see what your eyes can see in terms of light.

What I mean by this is your eyes can determine the difference across a broad spectrum of light in a scene and can thus expose the scene correctly so that you see everything exposed correctly. Your eyes have a very high dynamic range (google it!)
A digital camera cannot. It can't expose correctly across a scene where there is a large difference between the brightest and darkest part of a scene as the dynamic range is too high.
To help the camera compensate for this then there are a number of options available to you. You can use filters to help bring the brightest part of the scene down a few stops. You can blend two exposures in PS, one for the bright part of the scene and the other for the dark part of the scene. Or you can use specialised HDR (High Dynamic Range) software where you take a number of exposures to expose the differnet parts of the scene correctly and then the HDR software blends them together.

In the situation above I would try and expose for the midtones correctly. You'll notice that the highlights will be too bright and the shadows will be too dark but the mid tones will be exposed correctly. You can then use PS to brighten the shadows and darken the highlights.

Buy the book as well!!!