Exposure Compensation

[dicklaxt]

I guess this is the place for this question,

What does this mean??

Exposure Compensation is effective when the colors fill the frame.

dick

[ladyups]

Hi Dick.
I'm going to take a stab at this one....you come up with some thought provoking questions....:)

In my mind, this means that the exposure compensation works great as long as the colors fill the frame. Such as...to get the exposure compensation correct and set on a person, you would fill the frame with their face color. set the exposure and then back up to take the image. You would not change the exposure once you backed up. I'm thinking...on my Sony a100...that I could get a reading off the face, push the AEL button and then back up to compose my shot and the exposure would be right on for the face.

Hope this helps. If not...maybe someone a lot more experienced could answer this question better.

[jerryph]

To understand what exposure compensation is/does, you have to understand exposure and how a digital camera understands exposure.

This may surprise some, but cameras do not calculate exposures in colour, they calculate exposure in black and white... more precisely... grey... even more precisely, 18% grey which is the theoretical point between pure black and pure white.

When a camera exposes, it wants to set pure blacks or pure whites... and make then medium grey.

A perfect example is snow. Let the camera set the exposure for you and all your snow looks a dirty grey. Exposure compensation is a way to control this so that your snows look white and in the times that there are lots of blacks, to make them look black when they look grey.

This is the very basics of it. For me to get into greater detail, I would have to explain the Zone System... and that would be one heck of a long post. Suffice to say that it is a good idea to not only google this, but learn and USE the Zone System for digital cameras.

This one thing alone changed my ability to properly make good choices consistently on how to set my exposure settings more than any other piece of information to date. With this information, I can easily out-think the camera to get better exposures, and the best part is... I also know why.

[dicklaxt]

Exposure Compensation is effective when the colors fill the frame

This was a statement in a Canon Tutorial not a question I came up with and my question still stands, what does it mean?

If either of you explained it I missed it because of my limited knowledge, sorry.

dick

[dkippen]

Jerry - have you ever thought about teaching photography?? You have a wonderful way of explaining everything. So glad you're on this board.

[jerryph]

I am a teacher by profession for 1/2 of my business... lol I just teach advanced computer networking to the big guns from corporations, not photography, though... lol

Thanks for the compliment. :)

[jerryph]

Exposure Compensation is effective when the colors fill the frame

This was a statement in a Canon Tutorial not a question I came up with and my question still stands, what does it mean?

If either of you explained it I missed it because of my limited knowledge, sorry.


Dick... read over what I said. Put your line up against my explanation, and now think about it a second.

- Why would I need exposure compensation if I was taking a picture of a someone flying down a snow covered mountain in the winter?
- If I left the camera decide the exposure for me, what colours would it make the snow?
- What colour SHOULD the snow be?
- What could you do to make the snow look white?

Once you answer these questions in your head, you should know why they said that.

[directshooter]

Basically exposure compensation is this> Correct exposure is what the camera or naked eye sees ' but what is a correct exposure '?

Anyhow on your cam you have + and - facilities that allow you to either give extra compensation + or reduce it - Very good when shooting high and low contrast stuff , so lets say you are shooting a scene that is quite dark, but it looks ok, you could if you wish increase the exposue + to lighten the scene / or darken it by applying _ compensation?

Exposure is debatable / like i said earlier what is a correct exposure/ good to one may not be exceptable to another .

The best way to get to grips with exposure is to flick around the shutter speeds and apertures , add some + or - compensation...see what comes out and you will then get a good understanding of exposure?

Think on this old pros say that good studio portraits are shot @ 1/60 at f2.8 exposure on 100 iso , a good place to begin when going into the studio for the first time and a good exposure setting for portraits , but + or - compensation adds artistic qualities if applied correctly?

Si..

[sobhana]

Jerry, I have a question for you.

Do you use a grey card?