Exposure Compensation
Key points
Section titled “Key points”- Exposure compensation adjusts brightness when the camera’s metering gets fooled by very dark or very light scenes.
- Found on the dial (full-frame) or control wheel (APS-C); works in Program, Aperture, Shutter Priority, and Manual with Auto ISO.
- Metering averages scenes to mid-grey – so dark subjects (like black swans) look too light, and bright subjects (like snow) look too grey.
- Use negative compensation for dark subjects/backgrounds, positive compensation for light subjects/backgrounds.
- Expose for the highlights – protect bright areas from clipping, then recover shadows in post.
- Histogram and zebras help check exposure; histograms show JPEG previews, zebras can be tuned for RAW.
- Spot metering isn’t always accurate – multi metering with exposure compensation is more reliable in most situations.
- Using Auto ISO with exposure compensation avoids limits when shutter speed or aperture can’t be adjusted further.
View the transcript on YouTube: Open video, then ••• → Show transcript
This video is specific to Sony Alpha cameras (as that’s what candidate 1 is using). Let us know what camera you’re using and we’ll add more videos for the most popular systems.
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Exercise
Section titled “Exercise”- Take a shot of a light subject relatively small in the frame against a big bright sky or white wall and see if your camera exposes it correctly.
- Use exposure compensation and note down the value you had to use to get your subject correctly exposed.
- Repeat for a dark subject with a dark background.