Exposure Compensation

[Alex_B]

bryan peterson would never use a histogram, "never".
troy

why? for ethical reasons? no! He probably just would not use it because he does not need to use it, and did not grow up with it photographically.

A histogram is a tool, which is fairly new. It helps understanding and learning. So there is no reason not to use it if it helps in any way.

 

[EOS_JD]

bryan peterson would never use a histogram, "never".


troy

I'm not so sure......

 

[EOS_JD]

why? for ethical reasons? no! He probably just would not use it because he does not need to use it, and did not grow up with it photographically.

A histogram is a tool, which is fairly new. It helps understanding and learning. So there is no reason not to use it if it helps in any way.

Bang on answer Alex. I was going to say that they weren't around in his day and I'm sure even pro's get the exposure wrong at times. As you say the histogram is a tool that is fairly new to photography and can be of great assistance in a variety of circumstances. The key is learning to read it properly.

 

[TCimages]

Then either you shoot very different lighting situations from what I do, or your idea of correct exposure is much closer to what your camera suggests than mine

Whenever there is interesting light, which often means light which is not easy to handle, then someone has to decide which parts of the scene you want exposed correctly. And you would not want to leave that decision to the camera, which cannot know what your creative idea about that image would be. Now, often, spot metering will help here, but not, when you have a contrasty scene where there is more than one area in the image you want exposed with some detail. Then your exposure will always be a compromise between different spot readings. And you cannot cover this with any metering mode, you have to chose one and use EC.

As I said, there are many standard situations where you can live with one preset EC for the whole day of shooting. But unfortunately, at least in my case, when it gets photographically interesting, then this approach fails.

This was exactly my point. You summed this up nicely. And no, you didn't say there are many standard situations. You said Sun behind you and Studio...All other cases the meter fails. That's why I disagreed.
Your Quote...
"It is true for standard blue sky outdoor photography with the sun somewhere behind your back. It is also true for for well controlled studio light. But in all other cases cameras and their meters tend to fail totally."

 

[Alex_B]

You said Sun behind you and Studio...All other cases the meter fails. That's why I disagreed.

OK, I agree that I exaggerated a bit :blushing: ... buth that also means we basically agree ... hmm, boring, but nice

 

[windoze]

I'm not so sure......

I asked bryan in person ( last week ) if he uses a histogram,
he responded as follows....

"The Histogram is nothing more then a record of the quantitative value of the exposure relative to its highlights and shadows and has nothing to do with the creative value of the exposure. Save yourself both time and trouble. Turn off the histogram and if necessary, get a pair of reading glasses so you can better see the creative exposure you are hoping for when you view the monitor."

 

[Alex_B]

"The Histogram is nothing more then a record of the quantitative value of the exposure relative to its highlights and shadows and has nothing to do with the creative value of the exposure.

I think we all agree that having the histogram look nice does not imply that you produced a good photograph ... not even exposure-wise. However, that does not mean that quantitaive values are of no use.

Save yourself both time and trouble. Turn off the histogram and if necessary, get a pair of reading glasses so you can better see the creative exposure you are hoping for when you view the monitor."

To me this reads as a warning not to follow the mistake many people tend to make, to overrate technical aspects over the creative decision of the photographer. But keep in mind this warning comes from a pro who has digested all the technical aspects in a way ... the very beginner however can understand some basics of the image. But still, of course he should not expose just to please the histogram. As we said, it is a tool, and not the central point of photography.

Many of my histograms do not look like the standard histogram from the technical books, which avoid all clipping at the dark and the bright end and are more or less a continuous spectrum. Mine look very different, but I know why they look different, and it is on purpose, to get what he calls a creative exposure.

 

[windoze]

I think we all agree that having the histogram look nice does not imply that you produced a good photograph ... not even exposure-wise. However, that does not mean that quantitaive values are of no use.



To me this reads as a warning not to follow the mistake many people tend to make, to overrate technical aspects over the creative decision of the photographer. But keep in mind this warning comes from a pro who has digested all the technical aspects in a way ... the very beginner however can understand some basics of the image. But still, of course he should not expose just to please the histogram. As we said, it is a tool, and not the central point of photography.

Many of my histograms do not look like the standard histogram from the technical books, which avoid all clipping at the dark and the bright end and are more or less a continuous spectrum. Mine look very different, but I know why they look different, and it is on purpose, to get what he calls a creative exposure.

well said and your point is noted!
I think you're right.... :thumbup:


troy

 

[ketan]

I'm hoping someone can explain this better than my book. I can't seem to fully understand it. Exposure Comp is that little +- button correct?
What does it actually do? I understand this is supposed to make the picures brighter or darker, but on what level. When you go +1 or -1, does this actually effect the shutter or aperature. I don't think so, but I don't understand. When I have used this button in the past I have noticed it affect my light meter a lot, but I haven't noticed much different in the picture.
Also, when shooting in "bracketing" , I understand it's supposed to take shots and different EV, example -2, 0, +2. When I shoot in bracket mode, I notice the shutter speed changing.
Let me now if a can give anymore details to help understand my questions.
Thanks.
Nikon D80

I know that this post has gone into some different (higher) orbit of discussion, I found something in some other forum that was very easy to understand to a beginner...This was posted by 'Jim' in 2004.
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The camera REALLY changes the exposure, ie: the amount of light entering the camera.
In Av mode, the EC will change the camera's recommended shutter speed. In Tv mode, the EC will change the camera's recommended aperture. Why do we do this?
We do this to override the decisions made by the camera's metering.
A great recent example is Daniella's white birds against a dark background. Daniella knows when metering this shot, the camera will tend to overexpose the delicate white feathers, so she deliberately adjusts the exposure so that almost two stops less light enters the camera than what the metering suggests.
Remember that metering assumes that you are shooting an "average" scene. An average scene reflects a certain percentage of the light back to the camera and the camera bases its light "needs" upon this reading. Well, not every scene reflects this "average" amount of light. When it does not, the camera's metering will not give you a good exposure: either overexposing or underexposing the scene. But you can easily override this using the EC.
For example, let's say that an average scene reflects 18% of the light back to the camera's meter and the camera uses this information to determine the exposure. (probably 12% is more accurate, but we'll stick with the 18% number for now.) Certain scenes do not conform to this average scene. White sand, snow, and other very white scenes reflect twice as much light as the average scene. So the camera is actually receiving 36% of the light reflected back to the camera instead of what it expects in the average scene. So what is the end result here? The camera underexposes the scene. So you ADD exposure compensation to get the proper exposure. (this is why shooting snow with no EC produces grey snow!)
If all of this is just too much to remember, you can always rely on your histogram to tell the story! When you see a histogram with all the data bunched up on the left and none on the right, the scene is probably underexposed and you can ADD EC to move the exposure back toward normal exposure. Similarly, when all the data is bunched up on the right of the histogram and pushed right up against the rightmost edge, this scene is overexposed and some NEGATIVE EC is indicated. Practice this and you will see what i mean.
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Of course, I am still curious to learn relationship between EV and f stop and time. EV +1.00 does what f stop in Tv mode and vice versa...

 

[The_Traveler]

I found something in some other forum that was very easy to understand to a beginner...This was posted by 'Jim' in 2004.
Similarly, when all the data is bunched up on the right of the histogram and pushed right up against the rightmost edge, this scene is overexposed and some NEGATIVE EC is indicated. Practice this and you will see what i mean.

This is probably not quite correct.
If all the data is bunched up on the right but there is no clipping, i.e. there are no bright lines along the right edge indicating burnt out areas, using the EC to move the histogram down will only reduce the exposure needlessly.Read Expose to the Right (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml)
for a reasoned discussion of this.