Help me understand exposure compensation a little better

[rainking]

I know what it does but I don't find myself using it. Why would I use it if I could compensate my exposure by adjusting my ISO, shutter speed and/or aperture? I know the HDR guys love it but what else is it useful for?

 

[Big Mike]

Are you talking about EC while in manual mode? If so, then it's just a weird Nikon quirk...and I don't know why anyone would need it.

The the Canon world, Exposure Compensation can only be used then you're in the auto modes (anything but manual). As you might think, it adjust the exposure away from the camera's metered value (---0---).

Whenever I'm not shooting in manual (probably in Av), I'm using Exposure Compensation to give or take exposure.

 

[rainking]

Ahhh, never thought about shooting in manual and being able to adjust the compensation. I forgot about the mode since I never use it.

 

[flyingember]

because sometimes you don't have the luxury to fiddle with shutter and aperture. weddings, small children and other situations don't give you time to work in ideal situations. I recently shot a 2-year-old by following her around. I set my camera in P mode and used exposure compensation to adjust as I went.

in the end it's a tool. I find it invaluable to use because it's quick and precise when I need to use it, especially since my flash has a similar option.

my favorite part that relates to it is bracketing which is also exposure compensation. if I'm in a difficult situation I can set my exposure to what I want and setup bracketing to take different number of shots over and/or under exposed from my setting. like the first shot is normal, the second over and the third under, or two shots over or two shots under. it gives me options to choose from even when not doing HDR.

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

Your goal is to take the best possible photo under the circumstances. (And sometimes that can mean altering the circumstances if needed). With that in mind:

Never raise the ISO above the lowest setting unless the lighting condition forces that -- consider altering the lighting condition.

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You're using an internal camera meter that reads the light bouncing back from the subject. Given that the reflective properties of your subjects are not constant but instead an average and given that you may have a light source in the scene -- your camera meter will be inaccurate to a degree. Exposure comp. allows you to know better than your camera and adjust.

An alternative would be to use a superior metering technique like an external meter.

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Lighting conditions are variable and the contrast range in the scene you are photographing will change over a wide range depending on the lighting and the subject. Conditions can and will push past the limits of your camera to capture (blown highlights in a backlit scene for example). Exposure comp in conjunction with a high bit depth camera (like yours) and software like Photoshop can allow you to successfully capture the scenes that your camera would otherwise fail to get if allowed to execute it's standard exposure programming.

Joe