Exposure Compensation

[Tennessee Landscape]

Huh? How can exposure compensation be redundant in aperture priority or shutter priority? The purpose of it is to over-write the exposure settings you get in this mode. I personally use it quite often in both modes.

Yeah, yeah....I had to let that one sit for a day. I'm still new so I'm still getting used to all the features and when to use them. I've not used EC, but here is how I understand where to use it. When shooting in A, or S modes first of all. The camera will set the coresponding shutter or aperture for the correct exposure if your in aperture or shutter priority respectivly. BUT....if your shooting a predominantly white composition, say a winter landscape, the camera will see the snow as gray, expose as such and your snow will come out gray. Lets say you set you aperture at f/18 and the camera slected 1/250sec. If your set your EC for +1, your winter scene would now come out white and not gray. Conversly if you where shooting a black cat or a black lab portrait, you would then set the EC to -1 so that the dog will come out as a black cat or dag, instead of grayish version. Again, I'm still learning, I've not actually done this yet myself, but this is how I understand EC to work.

As far as using this in M mode, I really don't know why you would. I think that most all of todays modern SLR's and DSLR's are adjustable in 1/3 stops, as opposed to full stops. I just feel like if you really understand exposure, you could make all your adjustments with your shutter and aperture, and if that doesn't work some ND filters give you more control over your exposure. I'm sure someone here has plenty of reasons how you can use EC in M mode, but that is just my understanding to this point.

 

[Fate]

i tend to use it in aperture/shutter priority.

ive got into the habbit of underexposing my jpegs by -0.5 ev.... its probably a bad habbit, but it means i can retreive detail a lot easier than if i accidently overexposed

 

[Garbz]

As far as using this in M mode, I really don't know why you would.

Exactly for the reason you just mentioned. Go outside in the snow. In Auto modes the camera is going to underexpose. So either use EV compensation or switch to manual. In the latter case if you set the right exposure the camera will take the picture fine but when you look at the light metre it will show the picture is overexposed. This doesn't matter if you don't use the light metre in manual modes. As I said some people are very good at this and don't need to at all.

But consider you spend your entire day in the snow and in manual mode. If you set the EV compensation anyway the metre will be spot on before you take the correctly exposed (white is white) photo. Which is very VERY useful if you are in the snow, shooting manual, and the lighting conditions are changing.

It is even more useful if you are in the Arctic Circle and your LCD gives up (which happens to nearly all digital cameras when they get that cold).

I agree it's a feature that few will use, but it's also a feature some will sware by. I use it a lot since even when shooting in manual if the lighting changes the first thing I do is check the light metre to find out by how much.

 

[Phranquey]

These two pics were shot about 2 weeks ago out playin' with the puppy. These were shot in Aperture priority, with the first one +0.3EC, and the second +1.3EC, no other settings changed.

 

[sabbath999]

Personally, on my D40 and D80 I find that I get the best color pop when I shoot them at -0.7 EV... I think the meters overexpose a bit when set to default.

My D300 seems (to me) to be right on the money.

I mostly shoot aperture priority for non-moving stuff, and shutter priority for moving stuff.

Yes, I know how to do full manual (my first cameras didn't even have built in light meters, let alone auto exposure)... I grew up in the world of full manual.

That doesn't mean I think full manual gets you better pictures, however (excluding multi flash non TTL setups, obviously manual exposure is the rule there)... proper exposure gets you better pictures, however you meter it...

When I see somebody bragging about "I always shoot full manual" I kind of laugh... like some award should be given for that.

Setting the correct exposure for the job at hand is all that matters.

 

[EOS_JD]

Lets say you set you aperture at f/18 and the camera slected 1/250sec. If your set your EC for +1, your winter scene would now come out white and not gray.

EC will change the exposure. You might see the meter read what you say above prior to changing EC but as soon as you +/- EC, the setting will change.

 

[D-50]

I agree with Sabbath. If I have one chance to get a shot I will typical set my EV at -.7 on my D200, I did the same on my D50 when I was using that.

 

[Tennessee Landscape]

EC will change the exposure. You might see the meter read what you say above prior to changing EC but as soon as you +/- EC, the setting will change.

Even in A or S mode, that doesn't really make sense then. To me anyway......

 

[Tasmaster]

You set aperture to f/16, the camera choses a shutter speed of 1/250 sec. If you set EC to +1 the camera will change shutter speed to 1/125 sec.

 

[THORHAMMER]

also could come in handy in a commercial environment where you need specific dof, and action is taking place and you need specific shutter speed ALSO.

Then youll use it to fine tune .....

prob sports commercial, or car shoot, but hey its a good thing to have in that situation.

 

[christopher walrath]

Yeah, but what's the fun of pissing off the mule into kicking you in the shin when you can get slobbering drunk and go out and get all bruised up by yourself?



No really, there is a point in there.



If someone's already shooting manually and knows how to make an adjustment and which side of caution on which to err, then why have the stupid camera make that decision for you?

 

[Garbz]

Even in A or S mode, that doesn't really make sense then. To me anyway......

I'll explain because if it doesn't make sense I can only conclude that you don't really know how it works or have an over-reliance on your AE Lock button.

When you are taking photos in A mode for instance, you have control over 2 of the 3 elements that make up the exposure. You can control the Aperture, and the ISO. Whatever you set these to the camera will set the shutter speed to keep the exposure constant. That is in A or S mode you have NO control over the exposure as the camera selects it.

Shot at ISO400 at f/2.8 and the second at f/4.5

Yes but I wanted to be able to see what colour my wall was. Notice that changing the setting doesn't affect the image brightness. The same was as changing the ISO won't affect this either. The camera will simply compensate by adjusting the shutterspeed to keep the wall black.

Now this one is shot at f/2.8 with Exposure Compensation set to +2

Like my plain light yellow/grey wall?

Not using exposure compensation you're making the assumption that the camera knows what you want to photograph. Like photographing a person against this window I would like the subject to be lit correctly and a brilliant white light to be streaming through from the back. I can't do that in A or S mode without exposure compensation since the camera will assume the image is overexposed.

This makes no sense in M mode since you have complete control but if I wanted to simply point and shoot and let the camera try to guess how to take the photo I would have bought... well a point and shoot camera.

/EDIT: My sister's $100 P&S has exposure compensation too.

 

[mrodgers]

This makes no sense in M mode since you have complete control but if I wanted to simply point and shoot and let the camera try to guess how to take the photo I would have bought... well a point and shoot camera.

/EDIT: My sister's $100 P&S has exposure compensation too.

To clear up some stuff I've read in this thread with comments on manual mode, there is no exposure compensation in manual mode, is there? The exp. comp. in manual is you determining it with your settings. No magic EV button as there is in A or S (Tv) modes since you are setting everything in manual.

 

[EOS_JD]

I agree with Sabbath. If I have one chance to get a shot I will typical set my EV at -.7 on my D200, I did the same on my D50 when I was using that.

I'm sorry but this cannot work. You need to evaluate EVERY scene differently. Maybe for an average scene this will work ok but try shooting a snowy scene with EC at -0.7...... Or any other tricky lighting scenario....

You'd end up with dark grey snow and probably lots of noise trying to recover it in ACR!

 

[EOS_JD]

Even in A or S mode, that doesn't really make sense then. To me anyway......

OK. Set to aperture priority, if you use EC, the shutter speed will move to amend the exposure. Using shutter speed priority, amending EC will change the aperture value.

Whatever you do, changing EC MUST change the exposure as what you are doing is allowing more/less light in to expose any given scene.

In A (aperture priority) or S (shutter priority) you set the most important exposure setting for your given subject and the camera will amend the other to suit.

Some pro cameras I believe can also amend the ISO which would be very useful. You set A and S and the camera will amend ISO for any given scene. But most prosumer cameras don't have this function yet.

EC just allows more/less light into the camera and the only way to do this is with longer/shorter shutter speeds or larger/smaller apertures.