Unfortunately there is no easy method to get the perfect exposure in a photograph. As with all pursuits if we were able to expose all of our photographs perfectly then I imagine you would lose interest in the hobby of photography fairly quickly.

Part of the enjoyment we gain from photography is the thrill of trying to get the perfect exposure – just as many hunters say the thrill is in the hunt, not the kill however with photography the kill (or photograph) provides something lasting with which we hope will thrill us and others for many years to come.

Much as Bryan Peterson says in his book Understanding Exposure, there is more than one so called ‘correct exposure’ for every scene. The one we deem to be correct is the one that achieves the creative effect we are looking to capture.

Below I shall describe what I consider one of the easiest and fail safe ways to get a ‘good’ exposure from your camera.What I mean by good is one that capture the scene well without excessive blown out highlights or low lights.

Naturally you will need to change you approach depending on what you are shooting and the lighting conditions. Below I will describe a work flow to use when shooting fairly stationary subjects outside on a reasonably bright day.

Basic Camera Set Up

1. OK fist thing to do is to set your camera to aperture priority mode. In this mode we’ll be selecting the aperture to control the depth of field and let the camera choose the shutter speed (making adjustments if required).

2. Select one shot focus mode and choose to focus using the center focusing point. Switch your lens to auto focus (AF) mode.

3. Set your cameras ISO to 100. We may need to adjust this later if our shutter speed is too slow but we should always try to keep the ISO as low as possible.

4. If you are using a Canon DSLR set it to Landscape mode. This is a preset that has a slightly higher saturation and warmer colors than the cameras default settings.

5. Set your cameras white balance setting to ‘Cloudy’. Again this will have the affect of warming the colors up a bit which tends to appeal to most peoples eyes.

Set Your Aperture

6. If you are taking a portrait set the aperture to f5.6 – this will create a relatively shallow depth of field allowing the background to be blurred out. If you are aiming for more of a landscape shot with the background in focus aim for around f11.

Gauge The Required Shutter Speed

7. Hold your cameras up to your subject and half press the shutter release button and make a note of the shutter speed the camera is proposing to use. As a general rule you should aim to keep this shutter speed above the focal range of the lens you are using. For example if you are using a 50mm lens the shutter speed should be no  slower than 1/50 of a second. For 200m the shutter speed should be no slower than 1/200 of a second.

If your shutter speed is acceptable according to the above formula move on to the next step. If it is too slow you can either increase your aperture (select a smaller f number) or increase your ISO. Most modern DSLRs can handle up to ISO 400 without losing too much quality so try this.

Check and if Required Adjust Your Exposure

8. OK so your shutter speed is acceptable, go ahead and fire a shot. Now we want to use the very useful histogram tool to check our exposure. While previewing the photograph on your cameras LCD screen press the ‘Display’ button until you see the histogram show up. What you are looking for is a histogram that does not go off either the left (dark side) or right (bright side) of the graph.

9. If you have gone of the end of your histogram you’ll need to use the cameras exposure compensation feature to adjust the exposure and shoot again. If your image was too bright and off the right hand edge of the histogram set an negative (-) exposure compensation and try again. Likewise if it was off the left hand side (too dark) set a positive (+) compensation.

Remember that you should always aim to have your image as near to the right hand side of the histogram without being off the edge. As result it may take you a few shots until you get this right.

It is also worth remembering that the human eye can see about 9 stops worth of light whereas you camera can see only 5 stops. This is why you break the histogram in situations with very contrasting light and blow out either the highlights or low lights (or both). If you are shooting a scene with both very bright and very dark areas it may not be possible to fit everything within the 5 stops histogram. In such situation you will have to choose whether the dark or light areas are more important and should be exposed correctly.

by Krug6

As a general rule this is the light areas so blowing out the shadows or dark areas is usually the compromise you should make if required. For example the above shot needed a careful exposure to avoid totally silhouetted flowers caused by the back lighting sun. Depending on the lighting conditions you may need to make several exposure adjustments before you get it just right.

10. Pat yourself on the back because you should have just taken a perfectly exposed photograph!

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