Digital Camera Aperture Settings

Writen by Jill Kane

A great photograph depends on a lot of things. A great view, a good camera, good light and of course, aperture settings and shutter speeds. What exactly does the aperture do? It is, basically, an aperture or an opening. The size determines how much light enters the camera through this opening and falls on the image sensor to form the digital photograph. Did too much light get through? Your photograph could be a washout. Was it too little? You’ll get a dark picture.

Apertures come in different sizes – all classified as ‘f’ numbers. Each number lets in double the amount of light as the previous one. The standard is between f/1.8 and f/16. The smaller the aperture, the less light that will be let in. So an f/16 lens will let in half the amount of light as an f/8 lens. The aperture works in conjunction with the shutter as well when it comes to the amount of light let in. The speed at which the shutter opens and shuts is also a factor that determines the amount of light. When it comes to fast-paced action, a fast shutter speed is essential to capture the motion. For a landscape or a posed photograph a slower shutter speed is fine.

A photographer who is extremely particular will adjust both the aperture as well as the shutter speed. A perfect balance between the two could very often bring about that one perfect picture. It needs a trained eye in order to judge perfectly exactly what the settings should be. What he would also take into account is the depth of field, that is, how much of the image remains in focus. In larger apertures, there is just a short range that is in focus, whereas smaller apertures have a much deeper range, going from the foreground close by to way back, deep into the background. It would all depend on the kind of shot to determine what the settings should be.

For those of us who do not have the inclination, the understanding or the patience, we can always resort to the automatic setting. It’s simple, the camera does all the work of adjusting for you and you get a good photograph. It might not be a work of art as might a photograph that a true professional photographer might have taken, but most cameras today give you a very acceptable quality.

Why do we need aperture settings at all? The simple, old cameras didn’t have any. If you choose a camera with aperture settings like a telephoto, wide-angle and maximum aperture features, you know that even in an automatic setting, you will get different kinds of pictures, not the same, flat look. It gives you the freedom to take any kind of shot, anywhere, in any light. Otherwise you might find yourself restricted to typical, posed cheesy pictures without too much character or depth.

Photography Workshops and Master Classes

Writen by Bruce Smith

Several years ago, I met a fellow photographer – albeit, he was an amateur, a very good one (the difference is not the quality of the work . the difference is that one does it for love, the other does it for money). He is now a new friend and fellow photographer named Marco, an Italian. His day job is as a top children’s heart surgeon. His passion for photographing people takes him all over the world, seeking out that special face, interesting enough to be captured on film/file.

During our brief encounter in my brother’s hairdressing salon, we had found common ground and a need to explore each other’s pictures. He asked me if I would visit his photographic society to meet the other members and discuss the possibility of me giving a talk about my fashion photography. I said to Marco, “Whatever will I talk about?”

Well, first off, he said, there is something very magical in the expressions of my models and in the atmosphere of my pictures that he would love to have in his. He asked me how do you achieve this. Shocked at his remark, I said, “No, I can’t, because I don’t know myself.” You have to find out he said because this is what you should talk about. We spent the next couple of hours disgussing photography and the feelings and techniques of managing your subjects whilst shooting.

During my visit to his camera club, we arranged for my talk to be done nearly 9 months later, so I had time to think about my talk and to get myself prepared.

For days, I looked at my work and examined myself whilst shooting assignments. It was maybe 6 months later whilst photographing a bridal-wear collection for one of my clients that something clicked. (No pun intended!)

I had decided that I would like to start shooting with wider lenses to change the style of my bridal-wear pictures. I shoot for so many bridal-wear designers, so I have to make them look and feel different to the each other. It also helps to use a short zoom, because during most of my shoots, I can take a variety of images from full length to portrait shots from the same distance, so my client gets much more usage out of the shots.

While moving in closer to my model, I noticed a big difference in the expressions in her face and her body language – they changed, as I got closer. I experimented more and began to play with this for the rest of this shoot. Not only could I see better, it also created a much better flow of the energy and communication between my model and myself. For years, I have been shooting fashion pictures using medium-length telephotos, at times so far away that my models could not hear me directing them. An amazing thing had happened. I could see and control so much more in my pictures. Not to say that I will never use long lenses, just that I prefer the new results that I am getting with wide lenses. In fact, most of my recent projects I have shot with a wide zoom.

I find that by doing the poses and expressions in my face that I want, my models seem to mirror mine. If I act daft, they act daft. If I laugh, they laugh. If I pull a sad face, they pull a sad face – which always makes them smile

Since this experiment, I have been adapting my directions to my models in much the same way, obviously changing my energy levels to match the levels I want in my pictures. If I want a nice soft and gentle feel, I express this in my voice and my manor and my body. If I want high energy, I do high energy. If I want my model to leap, I will leap.

Think about this as if you were a conductor. The next time you attend a concert, watch him or her, and watch the orchestra. They mirror him – fast tempo, slow tempo, and medium tempo. You can do the same with your models.

Fashion pictures for me have RHYTHM and TEMPO. If you want to express high energy or tempo in a picture, the shoot has to be high energy or tempo, or visa- versa.

I look at pictures and sometimes wonder how boring the shoot must have been. I love to change the tempo up and down whilst I’m shooting, I would hate it if anyone viewing my pictures did not feel this energy. This is why I strive to make my shoots exciting for myself, my model, the other members of my team, and, most important, for my clients.

As a photographer, you are the conductor, your models are your orchestra, and your clients or viewers of the pictures are the audience. So you have to direct and entertain. Your performance will reflect in your pictures.

I want you to try a little experiment. The next time you have people over to your house or you get a moment with some people at work, pick a volunteer. Face each other, one or two feet apart, don’t speak, and don’t look at each other. In fact, do your best to imagine they are not there. Stay like this for 30 seconds and remember how this feels. Stay in this position but hold each other’s hands, look into each other’s eyes, smile at each other, don’t speak. Instead of imagining they are not there, do the opposite. Try and send them all of your good energy. Stay like this for 30 seconds. Remember how this feels, and compare the feelings. Ask your friend or colleague and the others to explain how it felt for them. The next time you are shooting pictures, remember all of these feelings.

Bruce runs courses, master classes and workshops that give students an insight into the fascinating world of fashion photography. Instructor and photographer Bruce Smith teaches the fundamentals of preparing for a fashion shoot and setting up and photographing a shoot. “Introduction to Fashion Photography” is intended for anyone who wishes to shoot fashion images for fun in order to impress family and friends or for those who have a burning desire to become a professional fashion photographer.

Bruce’s objective is to helps young photographers, initially to produce single fashion shots and eventually to produce fashion stories that would not look out of place in today’s fashion magazines.

With a fashion photography career spanning 30 years, Bruce has shot projects in many parts of the world from Alaska to Thailand. For the past 3 years he has been giving workshops, lectures and talks in various parts of the UK as well as abroad, teaching hands-on the skills and techniques he has learned during his professional career.

There are several variations to the courses that photographers can take, from an online 8 week intense practical asignments course to 5 day master classes in beautiful settings in the South of France and Italy. Bruce teaches studio photography on his fashion and beauty or Glamour and Fine Artistic Figure and Nude photography workshops, held every month in fabulous studios in South West London. Students can expect to learn a lot of the secrets behind Bruces amazing fashion, beauty, glamour and fine artistic figure and nude photographs.

His work can be seen on his web sites:
http://www.brucesmithphoto.com
http://brucesmithphotoworkshops.bravehost.com/online.html

You can read the many letters of thanks from his former students. There is also a students gallery where you can see the standard of photography his students are achieving in a short period of time whilst attending his photography master classes and workshops.

Olympus Digital Camera Review – Picture-Perfect Olympus SP-500 UZ

Writen by Rika Susan

The Olympus digital camera is preferred by many photographers specifically for image quality, even though it may be lacking in some features found in other cameras in a similar price range.

Such is the case with the Olympus Digital Camera SP-500 Ultra Zoom.

Some who have tried this Olympus digital camera with its excellent 10X zoom lens have complained about the lack of an image stabilizer, but it seems all is forgiven when you take the broader picture (so to speak!) into account.

This Olympus digital camera is no mere point-and-shoot – even though the excellent price might lead you to believe that it is nothing special.

It is a true prosumer camera, with a range of powerful features to satisfy even serious photographers, as pointed out in a number of Olympus digital camera reviews.

Starting with the basics, the Olympus SP-500 UZ works with normal AA batteries, so you’re hardly ever likely to be completely out of battery options. The camera is reasonably conservative as far as power consumption goes, sparing you from having to carry a whole bag of backups with you on your next field trip.

This Olympus digital camera has a solid grip and feel, much more like an SLR than like it’s little consumer cousins, and as an aspiring or even expert photographer, you needn’t feel self-conscious in public…

The versatility of this camera is accentuated in Olympus digital camera reviews. The Olympus SP-500 offers you enough manual control to do a lot of experimenting, which is what digital cameras are about! On the other hand, if you’re still learning the ropes – or are just in a rush – it has at least 21 pre-set modes to help you out in a variety of situations.

In situations where the excellent autofocus system can’t be expected to cope fully, you have the option of using the software-controlled manual focus. This is easy to set by navigating on your LCD screen.

Many photographers prefer to be able to manipulate and process the images on their computers afterwards, instead of relying on the camera’s onboard processor. The Olympus Digital Camera SP-500 doesn’t let you down in that respect. You can shoot in either RAW or JPEG format, or in a combination of the two.

A host of other features will enhance your digital photography experience. The Olympus digital camera allows you to edit images inside the camera, including red-eye removal and cropping. A number of external lenses can be attached to the Olympus SP-500 UZ, to expand the telephoto and wide angle abilities of the camera.

The generous 2.5 inch LCD screen helps a lot when composing and reviewing your pictures. Another plus is that the Olympus SP-500 uses the newer 1GB xD cards that facilitates storing of many more of your creatively captured images.

Anyone who enjoys photography as a hobby, and can invest some time getting familiar with new features, will find that a camera worth its price is the SP-500 UZ Olympus Digital Camera!

For more information visit Best-Digital-Photography.com

Rika Susan of Article-Alert.com researches, writes, and publishes full-time on the Web. Copyright of this article: 2006 Rika Susan. This article may be reprinted if the resource box and hyperlinks are left intact.

Are You Large Format Computer Graphic Literate? These 5 Questions Will Tell You

Writen by Bob Albright

Today it seems there is a large format printer on every street corner. HP5000’s, Encad’s, Epson’s for large format printing (<35" wide) are available at your nearest Kinko's or Office Max. Many people pull a few files off their internet site, drop them into Photo Shop or Illustrator then take their computer file then submit their saved file to a large format printer and think everything will work out just the way they envisioned it. My experience in producing graphics for the trade show business for the past 25 years tells me otherwise.

In this period of time we’ve gone from one off screen printing for large trade show signs, to utilizing the Gerber vinyl cutter to make garage sale type signs to today’s process which uses computer files for designed for various types of RIPs (Raster Image Processor) that print CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) images on various substrates from paper and vinyl to polycarbonate. Today most large format printing is done using these RIPs and the ink jet high resolution printers.

What are the land mines ahead for most people? Trade show graphics design requires an understanding of graphics computer software. If you can answer the following questions then you may be able to do your own graphic design. (Anwers provided below).

1) Vector Art – which programs provide it. What does resolution independence mean?

2) File Resolution – How does file resolution limit final print size?

3) Photographic proportioning – How must you scan a 35mm slide to make it fit a 14″ x 150″ header layout?

4) If you had a 150 pixel by 150 pixel image and we require 100 pixel per inch how big could this be printed?

5)Your image is scanned at 3200 pixels wide x 2400 pixels tall. You need a 15″ x 28″ graphic. Is the file appropriate?

If you can’t answer these questions off hand, you need to pay someone to create your graphic art. I frequently have customers submit files who couldn’t answer the above questions and we end up having to recreate their artwork.

Answers: 1. Vector art is artwork created in a drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator. All images must have outlines around them in order to be vectored artwork. These outlines are represented by mathematical formulae that allow the images to be enlarged to virtually any size and still be printed at a high resolution. That is what resolution independence is the ability to scale a graphic to various sizes and still retain high image quality. Scanned images and digital photography (bitmap images consisting of pixels) are not resolution independent, depending on the output device they can only be printed to a certain size and no larger.

2. File resolution limits final print size for all bitmap images (digital photography and scanned images). If you print RIP requires 100 pixels per inch then the final print size of a file 2569 pixel x 3678 pixels is 2569/100 x 3678/100 or 25.69″ x 36.78″ and not larger unless you are prepared to live with pixelated and otherwise degraded final images.

3. To use a 35mm slide you would have to severely crop the image and scan it at a very high resolution 1400 pixels x 15000 pixels. Most of the image area of the slide is going to be unavailable for the header proportions. About 15% of the total slide would have to be scanned at 1400 pixels x 15000 pixels in order to be printed at an acceptable resolution.

4. A 150 pixel x 150 pixel image could only be printed 1.5″ x 1.5″. Not nearly large enough for trade show graphics usage.

5. Your image is scanned at 3200 pixels x 2400 pixels. You need a 15″ x 28″ graphic. Is the file appropriate? Answer: No, you only have 24″ in height available. (2400 pixels in height / 100 pixels per inch = 24″). Therefore you’d have to crop the image to 24″ in height which would reduce the width to 17.1″ keeping it proportional.

I suggest that if you don’t understand those questions and answers above that you pay someone to do your computer layout for you. You’ll save time in the long run and perhaps even make your deadline.

Sony’s New Digital SLR: The Total Package?

Writen by Chris Roberts

What do you do when you’re the latecomer to a very exclusive party?

You’ve got one of two options:

• Dress up like everyone else and blend in with the crowd
• Make a huge entrance wearing an outfit that’s louder than a Rolling Stones concert

Sony has chosen the latter when it comes to their new digital SLR camera.

The Feature Fight

A year ago, there were five dominant players in the digital SLR camera business: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Konica Minolta.

Canon and Nikon duked it out for the attention and admiration of professional photographers, while Olympus, Pentax and Minolta preferred to target the consumer market.

With the megapixel race pretty much over, these three companies gained consumer attention with their own proprietary features.

Olympus developed the Supersonic Wave Filter, a device that “scrubs” the camera’s electronic sensor, removing tiny particles of dust.

Pentax made their cameras small and light, some of the most portable digital SLRs on the market.

Konica Minolta beat everyone else to the anti-shake arena, and made it an integral part of their cameras. The built-in anti-shake reduced camera vibrations for clearer hand-held shots, and it worked with every compatible Minolta lens.

But here’s the key: since all of these technologies were proprietary, there was no one SLR that had them all.

Until now.

The Sony DSLR-A100

Sony claims that their new digital SLR camera has all of these features and more.

It includes a dust-repellent sensor (like Olympus), built-in anti-shake (like Konica Minolta) and a compact frame that mimics the size of the Pentax digital SLRs.

Then Sony takes it one step further.

The A100 has one feature not available in any camera from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax or Minolta. In fact, only two lesser-know cameras made by Fuji have something similar: extended dynamic range.

The human eye has exceptional dynamic range, and can perceive a lot of detail from shadow to light. Cameras can’t.

A digital SLR will either lose detail in the shadows and correctly expose highlights, or will blow out the highlights when exposure is set for the shadows. A camera with extended dynamic range is better equipped to capture detail from dark to light, even when there is a lot of contrast in the scene.

In addition to the extended dynamic range, the DSLR-A100 also has an autofocus feature which activates when you bring the camera up to your eye, 10.2 megapixels for huge 16×20 inch prints and all the other goodies you’d expect on a high-end digital SLR.

What the Future Holds

Only time will tell how well Sony competes with the established digital SLR companies. Even though Sony is late to the SLR party, they are prepared to make a big entrance.

If they continue to release feature-rich cameras like the DLSR-A100, Canon and Co. will have to watch their backs.

Chris Roberts dispenses practical plain-English advice and information about digital SLR cameras at the Digital SLR Guide. His 5-week ecourse in digital SLR technique helps beginners get the most out of their digital SLR cameras.

The Top Five Tips For Taking Your Digital Camera On Vacation

Writen by Thad Pickering

One of the most common places for people to use their digital camera is while they are away on vacation, and no wonder, because we all want to preserve those special events and memories as much as we can. But digital cameras require their own advance preparation for the trip. So here are the top five tips for taking your digital camera along with you on vacation.

1. More so than any other camera, digital cameras rely on a good solid power source, usually its batteries. If you haven’t used your digital camera in a while, the batteries you have may not be sufficiently charged for your entire trip. And even if your current batteries are sufficiently charged, it’s a very good idea to have extras along with you on the trip because you just don’t know how much use your camera will get and you don’t want to be caught short at the wrong time. Sometimes, batteries for certain digital cameras can be very specialized too. So it’s always a good idea to buy batteries before you leave to have them handy with you on the trip.

2. You’ll want to give attention to your storage cards before you leave as well, and be sure that you have enough for the trip. Remember, storage media is sort of like film in that if you have no way to upload the photos each day, it will eventually get full and you will need a replacement to continue shooting. Also before you leave check the storage card that you have in the camera to see what images are currently stored there. If there are photos on the card that you wish to keep, now is the time to upload them while you are still at home and then wipe the card clean for use on the vacation.

3. Taking a camera on any vacation or trip can subject it to a lot of use and getting banged around if you are not careful. So having a good camera bag to put your digital camera in while on vacation will be very important. If you have a digital SLR camera, then you may even want to take extra lenses along with you on the trip. If so, be sure that the camera bag can handle all the equipment that you need to take with you, and that it is comfortable to carry along with you each day. It’s good to have storage capacity in your camera bag for extra media cards, lens cleaner, and any other accessories that you find useful too.

4. A very useful accessory for both film and digital cameras that many people forget is a tripod or mini tripod. Handholding a camera is one of the largest reasons for blurry unfocused photos. This is a common problem with many people, and it can all be solved with the use of a tripod. Obviously, you can take a large tripod with you on some excursions as it would just be too heavy to carry, but here’s where a mini tripod can come in very handy. Many times they can fit right in your camera bag with you and be set up quickly and easily on a flat surface. The use of a good tripod is guaranteed to help you take sharper, better photos.

5. If you plan on bringing your laptop computer with you on the trip, don’t forget to bring along the necessary USB cables to connect to your camera and upload your photographs at the end of the day.

If you take just a few minutes before you leave to organize your digital camera and accessories, you can assure that you will be able to have plenty of opportunities to record the fun and good times that you will enjoy while in vacation.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including digital photography. You can find a digital photography tutorial and the digital photography basics by visiting our Digital Photography website.

Applications of Underwater Video Cameras

Writen by Jason Gluckman

There’s so much you can do with an underwater video camera. If you enjoy snorkeling or diving, you can use the camera to show your friends and family the beautiful tropical fish, colorful coral reefs, and other underwater treasures you encountered on your vacation.

But that isn’t all. Videotape the children (and adults) swimming at the ocean, lake or pool. This could help them improve their swimming techniques or record their very first swim. Or you could plant your underwater video camera on the bottom of your pool and enjoy all the underwater swimming and games played on the VCR.

You could put this camera in your aquarium and see the fish and water life from another view on your television across the room.

Many people use underwater video cameras for fishing, ice fishing and boating. Think of this: You can actually see the type and quantity of fish below the water surface or find out what the conditions are like beneath your boat. Are there weeds, rocks, or sand? You could also inspect damaged propellers. All you have to do is attach your underwater video camera to your boat hook or fishing pole.

Your underwater video camera should connect to most camcorders TVs, VCRs, portable monitors and LCD screens with AV inputs.

You can also record everything on your computer with an underwater video camera. All you need is something called a Grabbee Video Grabber. Then you connect the camera to your lap top and record.

How far can you see using an underwater video camera? About 10% farther than a diver can. Water clarity plays more of a role than the depth and available light. Typical viewing distance of an underwater video camera will range from 3 feet (very poor visibility) to 50 or 60 feet (excellent visibility).

You should have a choice of a color camera or black and white. In the past black and white cameras were much more light sensitive and were a better camera to use underwater. This is not the case any longer. Today’s color video cameras are very light sensitive and can produce a very nice image in low light. So price is really the major consideration when choosing a black and white or a color camera.

During the day most underwater video cameras will operate on natural light to about 100 feet in most water conditions. Beyond 100 feet or at night you will need to use the auxiliary lights.

Underwater Cameras Info provides detailed information on underwater cameras, including underwater digital cameras, underwater video cameras, and underwater fishing cameras, as well as underwater camera housing and cases. Underwater Cameras Info is the sister site of Disposable Cameras Web.

Take a Digital Image to Remember That Important Location

Writen by Eric Hartwell

Have you ever gone out and seen a great image in the making? Was it the wrong time of the day? The wrong season? Or perhaps you didn’t have your camera with you at that moment in time.

How do you deal with these situations? I used to have a little notebook and write down the location details with a promise to myself to go back at some future date to take the photograph. But, of course, I rarely went back. The notebook was filled with superb image-making material but very few images were forthcoming.

Well, why not use your digital camera (a compact will do) to record draft details of the location?

If you see a location that appeals then take a quick snap and go home. Upload this onto the computer and input details of the location. Then you can have a pictorial record of your “possible future project”.

What is the benefit of this?

I see the benefit as being that you will more likely remember the location if you see a draft image rather than empty words on a page in a notebook you will never refer to. And, also, the image you have can inspire you to think about how you would wish to take the photo when you do return to the scene. You can manipulate it in your computer image editing program and play around with it to inspire you to get the best image possible on your return to that location.

I’ll bet it will make you more likely to retake and even better picture.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com

Convex or Flat – Large Photographs – Circa 1900

Writen by William Heroy

Often having a pastel or chalky or simply just a photographic brown or black and white appearance in the early 1900’s, the large family portrait hanging over the mantle was an expensive and difficult project to undertake. Hometown photographers throughout the world simply were not able to produce the large “portraits” easily and resorted to mail order services. These mail order studios were generally located in large cities and could provide, what history has proven, a truly lasting and fine product by using photographic equipment capable of oversized printing, the use of talented hand-tinters (artists) and excellent photo mounting facilities – not to mention a very efficient mail shipping room.

Over the years I have studied and usually repaired more than 3000 of these pieces and have noted their constitution. May of these prints are convex, oval and hand colored. Others look like flat black and white or brown tone prints. Some look like drawings where as others look just like a large photograph. All of these large convex and flat photos are mounted on rag-board. Over the years, sunlight, heat and moisture have given the prints an “aged” look usually accented by a large exquisite frame. What matters most about them is that they are someone’s ancestors. The family traits, eyes, noses and mouths are important, but what matters most is they are family from the past, our heritage.

Can they be refurbished if there is damage from years of storage and neglect? The answer is nearly almost “yes” though sometime the task is made considerably more difficult if the photographs are actually broken. The process that was used in their initial manufacture is the key to the remarkable ability to bring these prints back to a nearly new condition without sacrificing the established aged look.

When a restoration or refurbishing is undertaken, special attention must be paid to the brittle nature of the pieces and the highly acidic nature of the photographic paper in which the silver image is embedded. Careless use of the wrong retouching materials and lacquers may severely damage any effort to rescue an otherwise fine image. Insect manifestation and water lines must receive special attention. The fine touches of color must be made with ground up oil-based pastels.

The technical beauty of these photographs lies in their inherent archival qualities. When properly taken care of, these objects will grace the walls of any home for decades without any significant deterioration of the image content unlike its contemporary counterpart, the natural color photograph which begins a slow, but steady decomposition from the time it is purchased.

William Heroy – Owner of Old Photo Specialists – Founded in 1973

If you would like more information:

Visit Our Website http://www.oldphotospecialists.com OR email us at oldphotospecialists@triad.rr.com

Old Photo Specialists is a highly specialized restoration studio. We provide a variety of services including original restoration, digital restoration, archival black and white and sepia tone printing, hand oil tinting, oils on canvas and a large variety of photography services. We educate our clients on how to take care of, preserve, and archive their precious family photos.

Write to Our Studio Old Photo Specialist 909 N. Elm St. Greensboro, NC 27401 (336) 271-6960

Bracketing and How To Use Tt Correctly…

Writen by Panmo Berger

What Is… Exposure Bracketing

Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations.

When you expose for a scene, your camera’s light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture.

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera’s light meter.

The reason you do this is because the camera might have been ‘deceived’ by the light (too much or too little) available and your main subject may be over- or under-exposed. By taking these three shots, you are making sure that if this were ever the case, then you would have properly compensated for it.

As an example, say you are taking a scene where there is an abundance of light around your main subject (for example, at the beach on a sunny day, or surrounded by snow). In this case, using Weighted-Average metering, your camera might be ‘deceived’ by the abundance of light and expose for it by closing down the aperture and/or using a faster shuter speed (assuming ISO is constant), with the result that the main subject might be under-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight over-exposure, you would in fact be over-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

Another example would be the case where the surrounding might be too dark, and the camera exposes for the lack of light by either opening up the aperture and/or using a slower shutter speed (assuming ISO is constant), then the main subject might be over-exposed. By taking an extra shot at a slight under-exposure, you would in fact be under-exposing the surroundings, but properly exposing the main subject.

Now, most digital cameras have auto exposure bracketing, meaning that if you select that option before taking your shot, the camera will automatically take three shots for you: one which it thinks it has perfectly exposed; a second one sightly under-exposed; and the third one slightly over-exposed.

When should you use exposure bracketing? Anytime you feel the scene is a challenging one (too much highlights or shadows) as far as lighting is concerned, e.g. sunsets are usually better taken slightly under-exposed so use exposure bracketing there, or whenever you want to be sure you don’t improperly expose a fabulous shot.

Remember, you are not using film anymore, so there are really no wasted shots (unless you are severely constrained by the size of your storage media).

Digital Dodging & Burning

Should you delete the extra shots right away? No, if storage permits, keep all three shots until you get home and upload them to your PC and into an image editing software, such as Photoshop. By using the layers functionality of Photoshop (or similar functionality of another image editing software), you can load all three shots into different layers and then carefully erase the under-exposed or over-exposed part of one or more layers to end up with a final shot where both the main subject and the surroundings are properly exposed!

This Photoshop functionality allows you to shoot in very extreme lighting situations where there are many parts in different intensity of light and shadows such that you are losing details in the highlights and shadows. In this case, you might need more than two extra shots to obtain details in the different parts. Without moving the camera (a tripod is essential here), take as many shots as you need, exposing for the different parts you want details to be visible. Then you would load them all up into Photoshop, each into its own layer, and by erasing the under- and over-exposed parts in each layer (granted, this equivalent of film ‘dodging’ and ‘burning’ can be a very tedious and challenging task in itself, but done properly it can be well worth the effort), you can end up with an ‘impossible’ shot where every part of the cave is properly exposed.

Used judiciously, exposure bracketing is a simple technique that can ensure proper exposure of a difficult lighting situation. Make sure you get a camera with good manual Bracketing control

Canon PowerShot S70 – Bracketing control