Exposure Compensation

Bend The Light

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Hi,

I have been doing a few birdy shots recently. I know that to expose the bird against a bright sky, that exposure compensation is necessary, so I cranked it up...and it works.
Question: If I then forget to reset the exposure comp back to zero, then all my images will be overexposed. If I then adjust the exposure in Adobe RAW, effectively back to zero, how is that going to affect my image quality?

I have tried it a couple of times, and it actually looks ok...providing I don't completely blow out the whites with the +ve compensation.

Thoughts?
 
Well like you said, as long as you're not blowing out your whites, it should be fine. Some people even do this intentionally ("Expose to the right" or ETTR) to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in the darker areas of the photo.

Best practice though, learn to reset your camera settings to some standard values before you put it away. Every. Single. Time. :)
 
Even if you forget to reset, looking carefully at the viewscreen image should let you know something is off, especially if you look at the histogram and other data (EC value should be displayed also). If you don't check you could be having other exposure issues and never know it. DSLR's offer all this immediate feedback - use it!
 
If you do birds, what dobt you use spot metering. Always meter spot where you think should be at zero and do no EC.
 
^^ That's what I usually do. I spot meter the small area and then exposure lock it.
 
Do you have one of the older baby Canon?

Edit: I just check and you have the 400D. And yes, the stock camera do not have spot meter (I used to own the same model in US - XTi). I remember someone made a custom firmware that has Spot meter for that camera.
 

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