Exposure Compensation
Zulma Busher
In this article, we will go over what exposure compensation is on a digital camera and how you can take advantage of it to make adjustments to your exposure when shooting in camera modes such as aperture priority, shutter priority, program mode and other scene modes of your camera.
This is done to get as close to the middle gray as possible so that the resulting image is not too dark or too bright. While this works out quite well in most cases, one might experience overexposure or underexposure in more challenging lighting conditions, where the camera meter might be adjusting the exposure too aggressively. This is where Exposure Compensation comes into play, with the photographer manually taking control of the brightness of the image and overriding it using the exposure compensation feature of the camera.
And if you cannot find such a button, there might be a dial on the top or the back of the camera that goes from a negative value to a positive value, such as -3 to +3, with small increments in between. If you are having a hard time finding the exposure compensation button or dial, please check your camera manual for details.
Once you make adjustments to exposure compensation, the +- EV values will be shown in the LCD and the EVF. If you cannot see those values after making changes, you might need to turn on informational overlays from the camera menu.
Although I have stated above that metering systems on cameras standardize on middle gray, many of the modern cameras now come with sophisticated metering systems that are capable of recognizing scenes based on pre-loaded data and making necessary adjustments to the exposure, essentially minimizing the use of the exposure compensation feature.
Because of such advancements, our cameras might require less and less manual intervention by using the exposure compensation feature. However, no matter how intelligent our cameras are going to get, knowing how to quickly make exposure adjustments is still important, not just because you might need to use it one day, but also because you can push the limits of your camera by taking advantage of such techniques as exposing to the right.
For my type of photography I have never used exposure compensation. I shoot everything manual which is much easier! I select the aperture I want and adjust the shutter speed and viceversa. If a scene is challenging, I close or open the aperture (or shutter) to obtain the perfect exposure.
My question concerns metering on a dark football helmet and jersey in football stadium at night.
I took some photos from a middle school football game last night using my
Nikon D7100, cropped sensor camera using a Nikkor 70-300 Zoom lens.
I tried shooting my pics with shutter priority, Zoomed to the 400 where fStop
Is f3.5 and I wanted my speed at 1000 to freeze movement, iso 400. And my pics
were all underexposed ? Since I was shooting from the stands on the stadium I was not exactly sure where to meter my camera. I could not set any exposure compensation for my situation.
I finally resorted to using manual mode and I used less shutter speed and a lot of
ISO, 2000 to get the my pictures to brighten ?
Exposure compensation is a technique for adjusting the exposure indicated by a photographic exposure meter, in consideration of factors that may cause the indicated exposure to result in a less-than-optimal image. Factors considered may include unusual lighting distribution, variations within a camera system, filters, non-standard processing, or intended underexposure or overexposure. Cinematographers may also apply exposure compensation for changes in shutter angle or film speed (as exposure index), among other factors.
Many digital cameras have a display setting and possibly a physical dial whereby the photographer can set the camera to either over or under expose the subject by up to three f-stops (f-numbers) in 1/3 stop intervals. Each number on the scale (1,2,3) represents one f-stop, decreasing the exposure by one f-stop will halve the amount of light reaching the sensor. The dots in between the numbers represent 1/3 of an f-stop.[1]
In photography, some cameras include exposure compensation as a feature to allow the user to adjust the automatically calculated exposure. Compensation can be either positive (additional exposure) or negative (reduced exposure), and is frequently available in third- or half-step, less commonly in full steps or even quarter-step[# 1] increments,[# 2] usually up to two or three steps in either direction; a few film and some digital cameras allow a greater range of up to four,[# 1] five[# 3][# 4] or even six[# 1] steps in both directions. Camera exposure compensation is commonly stated in terms of EV units; 1 EV is equal to one exposure step (or stop), corresponding to a doubling of exposure.
Exposure can be adjusted by changing either the lens aperture or the exposure time; which one is changed usually depends on the camera's exposure mode. If the mode is aperture priority, exposure compensation changes the exposure time; if the mode is shutter priority, the aperture is changed. If a flash is being used, some cameras will adjust flash output as well.
Many modern cameras incorporate metering systems that measure scene contrast as well as average luminance, and employ sophisticated algorithms to infer the appropriate exposure from these data. In scenes with very unusual lighting, however, these metering systems sometimes cannot match the judgment of a skilled photographer, so exposure compensation still may be needed.[2]
An early application of exposure compensation was the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer.[3] Although the Zone System has sometimes been regarded as complex, the basic concept is quite simple: render dark objects as dark and light objects as light, according to the photographer's visualization. Developed for black-and-white film, the Zone System divided luminance[# 5] into 11 zones, with Zone 0 representing pure black and Zone X (10) representing pure white. The meter indication would place whatever was metered on Zone V (5), a medium gray. The tonal range of color negative film is slightly less than that of black-and-white film, and the tonal range of color reversal film and digital sensors even less; accordingly, there are fewer zones between pure black and pure white. The meter indication, however, remains Zone V.
The Zone System is a very specialized form of exposure compensation, and is used most effectively when metering individual scene elements, such as a sunlit rock or the bark of a tree in shade. Many cameras incorporate narrow-angle spot meters to facilitate such measurements. Because of the limited tonal range, an exposure compensation range of 2 EV is often sufficient for using the Zone System with color film and digital sensors.
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Plus, with the exposure latitude of film being very forgiving, and typically -1/+3 with consumer colour negative film, it made sense to lean more towards over exposure than under exposure, as the film is more tolerant in that direction.
A Scottish photographer I worked for in my younger days told me to take a light reading of the back of my hand in the same light I was shooting. I am a caucasian of medium skin color so this worked perfectly for me. I just set the camera for that exposure and then shot away.
My present film camera has exposure lock so I take my light reading of an area I believe will give a truer light reading balance and then lock the exposure setting. I also use the exposure compensation when I am unable to get a reading that I believe best suits the scene.
* Do I set the ISO dial at ISO 200 and tell the lab to pull 1 stop?
* Do I set the ISO dial to 400 and the exposure compensation dial to +1 and tell the lab to pull 1 stop?
* Do I expose at ISO 400, EV0
Camera manufacturers have determined that most scenes will average out to a middle gray tone, often referred to as 18% gray. And your camera uses this 18% gray as its exposure benchmark; it analyzes the scene, then sets the exposure to perfectly match that gray value.
Ask yourself: Does the result look good? Or is it too dark (in need of positive exposure compensation) or too light (in need of negative exposure compensation)? Based on your evaluation, you can make changes to the exposure compensation value, then start again.
So find the button and press it. As you do, turn the main dial of your camera right or left, which will reduce or boost the exposure compensation value. Each click of the dial will usually change exposure settings by a third of a stop.
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