San Antonio Senior Portrait Photographers

[techtags: San Antonio Photography, San Antonio Photographers, Senior Portraits, Family Portraits]

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The automatic exposure feature on today?s inexpensive digital cameras is often better than the auto exposure was on expensive film cameras 10 years ago. Advances in computers allow a very sophisticated auto exposure brain to be packed into a tiny space in today?s digital cameras.

But even the most sophisticated auto exposure features can sometimes simply make an error or read the scene wrong and set the wrong exposure. The exposure compensation feature of your digital camera enables you to compensate for these mis-readings by making your photos lighter or darker than you would get using auto exposure alone. Here are some tips for improving your digital photos by using the exposure compensation feature of your digital camera.

1. Take a photo and check the exposure ? After you take your photo, review it in your camera?s LCD screen. One of the joys of digital photography is that you can always lighten or darken a digital photo later using Photoshop or another kind of digital photo editing software. However, while you?re still on the scene, why not use the exposure compensation feature to make the correction in the original. Photoshop can darken a picture after the fact, but it can?t bring back details that were lost in an overly bright section of your original photo. If they got washed out when the picture was taken, they are simply not there to bring back.

2. Choose the camera program settings ? You can always use exposure compensation with the fully automatic mode, but there is a better way. If you want to maximize the depth of field, switch to aperture priority and keep the camera aperture small. Of course this will decrease the shutter speed to allow more light to come in to the camera. Be sure the resulting exposure will not be at a shutter speed of less than 1/125th unless you are using a tripod.

If you are shooting a moving object, you?ll have to switch to shutter priority and set the shutter speed fast enough to eliminate blurring ? usually at least 1/400th. Just keep in mind that, when you do this, the depth of field will suffer, so focus carefully on your main subject.

After you?ve selected aperture or shutter priority, take another photo and check the results. If the depth of field and sharpness are acceptable, now it?s time to use exposure compensation.

Most digital cameras allow you to increase or decrease the auto exposure setting by 2 stops in 1/3 stop increments. You?ll have to check your digital camera?s manual to see just how to do it. It varies by camera. Start by adjusting the exposure compensation + 2/3 or ? 2/3, depending on whether your auto exposure photos was too light or too dark. Take another photo and check the results. If it?s still not right, make an additional adjustment to the exposure compensation and try again.

Exposure compensation gives you much more control over the exposure setting so your digital camera. Just remember, once you go to your next photo taking session, to be sure to return the + 2/3 or ? 2/3 or whatever to -0-. Otherwise you?ll get exposure compensation on your next photos without wanting it.

Tags: Photographers