Freelance Photographer Photography Basics

When to Compensate...

There are times in tricky lighting conditions when you need to make compensations to your exposure, this is the only time you change the balanced relationship between shutter speed and aperture value... You do this because you know the camera meter has been fooled by the lighting situation and the given reading is incorrect... You can learn to spot these situations with a little experience but I will list the basic ones below... Having a Kodak grey card to take a reading off is an advantage in these situations, if you don’t have a light meter that is...

•Contra Jour... (shooting into the light)...
•Dark Rooms...
•Night scenes...
•Sandy beaches...
•Snow scenes...
•Sunsets...
•Water scenes...

Note:- Automatic modes cannot be used without some form of compensation being made as the camera will revert back to its automatic settings...

Below are a few ways to help compensate for an incorrect exposure reading...


• Switch to manual... IMHO this is by far the most efficient way of making any compensation that is required, it also gives you the most control and helps the learning curve... Take the camera’s meter reading and transfer those settings to the camera in manual mode, if the auto reading says 1/125 @ f/8 you would set the aperture to f/8 and the shutter speed to 1/125, simple, nothing to be afraid of... You can now decide whether you wish to make the compensation via the shutter speed or aperture, depending on the subject matter and lighting conditions... If you were using a longish lens and you needed to increase the exposure by 1 stop you might wish to open the lens up to f/5.6 because if you slowed the shutter speed down by one stop to 1/60 it might cause camera shake... On the other hand if you were using a short or wide angle lens and were shooting a landscape it would be preferable to keep the depth of field that f/8 would give you and slow the shutter speed down to 1/60...

• Use the cameras compensation dial if it has one... With this method you simply dial in the plus or minus exposure setting you wish to use and the camera will take that into account when making the exposure... This is an easy method but does not add much to the learning curve and Don’t forget to reset the dial after you have taken the picture...

• Alter the ISO/Film speed setting (film cameras only) if your camera will allow it... With this method by altering the ISO/Film speed settings the camera calculates the exposure from the new ISO setting... So if your film speed is ISO 100 and you need to over expose it by 1 stop you would set the film speed to ISO 50, if you needed to under expose it by 1 stop you would set it at ISO 200... Don’t forget to change the film speed back when you have finished...


• Contra Jour...

A lot of beginners make the mistake of placing a subject quite a distance away and with their back to the light... The result is that the background is exposed correctly and the subject becomes very dark and under exposed... If you don’t have a light meter or a Kodak grey card you need to take a reading from closer to the subject so that they fill the frame... You could also take the reading from a large patch of green grass which has a reflective quality similar to a Kodak grey card...



• Dark Rooms...

• Night Scenes...

• Sandy Beaches...

• Snow Scenes...

•Sunsets...

The problem with taking sunsets is the difference in contrast between the sky and the land being more than the film/sensor can handle... One of the commonest mistakes is positioning the sun centrally in the frame causing the camera’s meter to be fooled giving under exposure to the land and leaving it devoid of detail... A better option is to place the sun 1/3 of the way in from the edge of the frame and take a reading from the sky away from the sun and use those settings in manual mode...

This however is where the graduated filter comes into its own, to balance the contrast... The most commonest graduated filter used is the neutral density grad (NDG) but other useful filters are tobacco and blue grads... These graduated filters come in different strenghts and can be used in multiples to get the balance just right... Take a reading from the sky as suggested above and then one from the land to see how much compensation is needed... If the difference is five stops then I would probably use a NDG8, which will reduce the difference by three stops, still allowing a two stop difference to keep the atmosphere...


Note:-NDG2 will reduce the contrast by 1 stop, NDG4 will reduce the contrast by 2 stops and the NDG8 will reduce the contrast by 3 stops...

• Water Scenes...

Water is a good reflector of light and a wide expanse can reflect enough light into the lens to fool the camera's meter especially when it is low in the sky... This is a good time to use that compensation dial if your camera has one and also a good time to bracket the exposure... Digital and slide film handle under exposure better than over exposure while print film handles over exposure better than under exposure... So for a starting point in manual mode I would set the compensation dial to plus ½ a stop for digital and slide film and plus 1½-2 stops for print film, I would then bracket by 1 further stop by opening the lens 1 stop or halving the shutter speed depending on which was most important o the subject matter...