Introduction
Have you ever looked through your camera’s viewfinder and seen a fantastic subject in front of an awesome background? It’s a dream come true for most photographers. But unless the background has neutral tones, when you look at the image you’ve captured you might find that your subject is way too dark, or completely washed out. A well-exposed photo is the aim of every photographer. We like a crisp image that is clear and bright, and modern cameras manage to do a good job of creating a balanced image, but sometimes things go wrong. But don’t put too much blame on yourself; in difficult environments often a camera can’t tell whether to take its light meter readings from the foreground or the background. What can you do about it? You can use the magic of exposure compensation.
Table of Contents
What is Exposure Compensation?
When you know what to look for, you can overcome exposure problems in a few simple steps. Exposure compensation is such an important option that there is a separate button or dial located on most cameras to make those adjustments. The exposure compensation button is usually found within easy reach on film cameras, as well as on digital devices such as compact cameras, mirrorless cameras, and DSLRs. Using this option gives you more control over your exposure. It overrides the setting the camera has chosen, allowing you to make small (but significant) changes to the brightness of your subject. Let me show you how easy it is to take control of your camera’s exposure system so that you end up with photos that match your expectations.
Which Camera Modes Does Exposure Compensation Work In?
If you use ‘auto’ mode to take most of your photos, then the camera is in charge of all aspects of the image. In most cases ‘auto’ does a fine job of metering, focusing, and adjusting the ISO to give a balanced exposure. But if you want to have creative control over the outcome of your photos, you’ll have to switch your camera to Aperture Priority, Program Mode, Shutter Priority, or Scene Modes.
Aperture Mode is a fantastic option that gives you the opportunity to set the preferred aperture that gives you the amount of depth of field that you desire. Choosing a wide aperture means you end up with a blurred background behind your subject. Or you can use a narrow aperture to have sharpness from the foreground to the subject—and you can keep the background in focus too! Adjusting the exposure compensation when using this mode makes the camera change its shutter speed to change the amount of light available.
Using Shutter Priority Mode allows you to choose a slow shutter speed to create deliberate blur. Or you may want a fast shutter speed to capture sporting action without accidental blurriness. When you incorporate exposure compensation it means you are automatically adjusting the aperture to provide the right amount of light to keep the photo well-balanced.
Program Mode and Scene Modes use a mixture of the settings shown above, and adding the extra element of exposure compensation makes the camera adjust the lightness and darkness in an appropriate manner to give the best results.
How Do You Set Exposure Compensation?
To make changes to the exposure of your photo the first thing you need to do is find the exposure compensation button or dial on your camera. It normally has a plus and minus sign on it. When you look through the viewfinder (or see the image on the screen) and realize it’s too dark, hold this button and move one of the thumb dials towards the plus side to lighten it up. If the image is too bright, rotate the setting towards the minus area to darken it. If your camera uses a separate dial on the top of the camera body, turn it in the appropriate direction to reduce or increase your exposure.
How is Exposure Compensation Measured?
Photographers talk about ‘stops’ of light. Each stop doubles or halves the amount of light reaching the film or sensor. When you adjust the exposure compensation to +1 you are forcing the camera to take in twice as much light as its meter thought it should. If you change the exposure compensation dial to -1 you reduce the amount of light received by half. You don’t have to jump to these full numbers though. There are varying degrees along the way. Each time you move a degree along with the exposure dial you are only changing the exposure by one-third of a stop. Some cameras have different systems to those mentioned, so check your instruction book for more details.
When Should You Adjust Exposure Compensation?
Poor exposures often happen when your subject has large areas of brightness or darkness behind them. The camera becomes fooled by the contrast between the subject and the background and it can’t cope with that different light intensity. The light meter on a camera is always looking for a way to create an average exposure. This makes sense until your subject is in front of a dark environment, because that’s when the camera chooses to brighten things up to create a neutral image, and your subject becomes washed out in the process.
Imagine that you find a black wall and you ask your friend to pose in front of it for a dramatic portrait—the metering system on your camera will add more brightness to neutralize all that darkness behind the subject—and this means your friend’s face becomes too light. The opposite happens when your friend stands in front of a white wall or is backlit by bright sunshine. A bright background makes the metering system panic and it darkens the whole scene to bring about a balanced shot. Unfortunately, that means your friend’s face becomes way too dark. Snowy landscapes and vacation photos were taken on white, sandy beaches are other scenes that can fool a camera’s sensor. The metering system still attempts to make these vistas uniformly grey, so it will underexpose the image and you’ll end up with dull shots that don’t look anything like the beautiful photos you expected to capture.
After taking a photo, it’s always wise to check the screen on the camera to make sure you created a good exposure. Sometimes settings become changed accidentally and unless you inspect your photos as you shoot them, you may end up with a batch of images that aren’t any good. It’s at this point that you can discover if your subject is perfectly exposed. If they are underexposed or overexposed then it’s time to make adjustments through exposure compensation. Often it’s quicker to use the exposure compensation option rather than changing your aperture, shutter speed, or ISO. Remember to set it back to ‘zero’ after you’ve finished taking that style of shot, otherwise, you may end up underexposing or overexposing your photos at the next location.
How Do You Set Exposure Compensation in Manual Mode?
Using Manual Mode is a great way to understand exposure control. It’s a necessity in-studio photography where you have to consider all the factors of exposure for every shot. In day-to-day situations, few people use full Manual Mode because it’s a constant juggle to get the aperture, the shutter speed, and the ISO (sensor sensitivity) aligned for the perfect exposure. Manual Mode doesn’t allow exposure compensation, so you make sure your subject is accurately exposed through a hand-held light meter, by exposure bracketing, or from using the High Dynamic Range (HDR) setting on your camera.
You do exposure bracketing by taking a photo as normal, then decreasing your shutter speed or ISO by one stop. Then lower it by another stop and take another shot. Now go back to your starting point and increase the shutter speed or ISO by one stop. Then increase it by another stop and take another photo. This will give you a broad range of exposures to choose from. Some cameras have an Automatic Exposure Bracketing system (AEB) which takes a burst of photos at varying exposures. You’ll have a normally exposed shot, followed by a slightly underexposed photo, and also a slightly overexposed image. Regardless of the lighting and background, one of these is bound to give the result you were trying to achieve.
Under tricky lighting conditions, High Dynamic Range (HDR) is a useful feature to set up in your camera. Most modern cameras have this option so check your menu settings or instruction book to see if it’s available. If you are shooting in an environment that has bright areas next to dark shadows, most cameras struggle to achieve a nice balance. HDR is a clever system that takes multiple images with different exposures and blends them into one image. This softens the highlights of the bright areas and brings out details in the shadows, creating a beautiful image that looks vibrant and much more realistic than what you’d create with other forms of exposure compensation.
Understand Your Histogram
A histogram is like a graph that shows how bright or dark your image is, along with warnings if there are too many highlights or too many dark areas. The light areas are indicated by lines on the right, while darkness and shadow areas bunch up on the left. Mid tones are in the middle. Histograms are useful because the exposure of images seen on a camera’s LCD screen is often misleading.
Some cameras, such as mirrorless devices, have Live View histograms, which means that before you take the photo you can see on the graph if the data stacks up too far in one direction. Otherwise, as you review your photos you can check the histogram to see if it is too overexposed or underexposed—and you can make adjustments using the exposure compensation button or dial. It’s much better to do exposure compensation in-camera (at the time of capturing the shot) than trying to compensate afterward with editing software.
Conclusion
Don’t put up with underexposed or overexposed photos. Get the perfect shot every time with a simple adjustment of the exposure compensation button or dial. It’ll give more depth to shadow areas, stop highlights from burning out, and give your subject the perfect exposure every time.
