High key. Histograms: Your Guide To Proper Exposure. A Post By: Rick Berk The finished image was a nice, high key portrait. See below for details on the histogram. To many newbie photographers, getting the proper exposure in camera is the biggest challenge they face. While letting the camera do the work for them turns out fine most of the time, there are many times where the camera can require some help. Knowing just how to give your camera that help is key to getting an image you’ll want to keep. In this high key portrait, the histogram shows a majority of pixels on the right side, representing brighter pixels. A histogram, in it’s simplest terms, is simply a graph showing the brightness levels of pixels in the image. Since a histogram is simply a representation of the tonal range of a given image, there really is no right or wrong histogram. As I mentioned, when judging exposure, the primary areas of the histogram to be concerned with are the right and left edges.
Now, here’s the big secret. Canon Explains Exposure. Fine Tune Your Exposures With Spot Metering. The metering systems of today’s digital cameras are light years beyond cameras of just 10 to 15 years ago. What this means is that in many situations, the camera’s meter, left to its own devices, is going to do an excellent job at getting a good exposure. While evaluative (or matrix) metering and center-weighted average metering take into account the entire scene, albeit in different ways, spot metering mode provides a tool for metering only the part of the scene you as the photographer consider most important. I used spot metering on this image due to the sun setting over her shoulder, making the sun and sand exceptionally bright behind her. By metering on the model’s shoulder, I was able to maintain detail in the shadow areas, without hurting the drama of the lighting.
Spot metering is especially helpful when the subject is much brighter or darker than the background, and the subject does not make up a majority of the image. When I saw this shot I immediately knew what I wanted. How to Read and Use Histograms. The histogram is a useful but often misunderstood tool that your camera provides to help you get the correct exposure on your images. In this article we’re going to look at how to read it and use it to your advantage to help you do just that. Getting the best exposure (there is not such thing as the “correct” exposure, as it’s all subjective) in camera should be your goal every time you click the shutter. Using these tips should help you increase your success rate. What is a histogram? Dictionary definition: A bar graph of a frequency distribution in which the widths of the bars are proportional to the classes into which the variable has been divided and the heights of the bars are proportional to the class frequencies.
HUH?! How to read the Histogram A histogram is a graphical representation of the pixels exposed in your image. What can we learn from this histogram? There are many things we can learn about an image just by looking at the histogram. This one shows the opposite. Is it wrong? Exposing to the Right. Expose Right (article de 2003) On my recent workshop in Iceland (July, 2003) I had a fascinating chat with Thomas Knoll about signal to noise ratios in digital photography. You may recognize Thomas' name — he is the original author of Adobe Photoshop, and also the author of Camera RAW. (A discussion with Thomas is featured in The Luminous Landscape Video Journal, Issue #6, from the Fall of 2002 when I was reviewing a pre-production Canon EOS-1Ds).
But I digress. We spent a lot of time chatting about digital topics during our 3,000 km drive around Iceland, and Thomas elaborated on one that had not occurred to me before, though once I started thinking about it makes perfect sense. Clouds and V Formation. Iceland — July, 2003 Canon 1Ds with 70-200mm f/2/8L IS lens at ISO 400 Home on The Dynamic Range Let's assume for the purposes of illustration that a digital SLR has a dynamic range of 5 stops (it's usually closer to 6 stops, but let's not quibble).
Why? The Lesson A Test Compare the two. Further Thoughts. Optimizing Exposure (pour aller + loin, article 2011) Why Do Camera Makers Give Us19th Century Exposures With Our 21st Century Cameras? Lace and Forest. Clearview, Ontario. July, 2011 Fuji X100 @ ISO 400 A Bit of Background Information In 2003 I wrote a tutorial titled Expose Right. The main points of that essay, summarized and updated, are as follows..... A cameras sensor is an analogue device. So What? OK. Cloud Painting. Fuji X100 @ ISO 200 Black Cats and White Cats Let's imagine two cats. What do these look like? Why? Take a picture of a typical scene, one with light tones, dark tones and medium tones, and a light meter or even the nifty 500 segment super-meter in your DSLR will do a pretty good job.
The Clever Photographer But, of course we're more clever than our dumb cameras. Right? But – Not For Digital! In the case of the white cat and snow – yes – you would do the same as for film – increase the exposure so that it looked correct. Why? Well, there is the story of Willy Sutton the famous American bank robber. Some Caveats Early Corn. Easy.