When shooting in any of your cameras automatic modes or even Aperture Priority (AV) or Shutter Priority(TV) modes it is still possible to get it wrong. Modern DSLR cameras do a pretty good job of exposing photographs correctly. Your camera will generally try an expose for the average tone of grey in your scene. This generally yields good results unless you are trying to shoot a scene that has very contrasting areas of light.
When To Use Exposure Compensation
If say your background is very bright compared to your subject then your subject will tend to be dark or under exposed as your camera attempts to set the exposure for the very bright background. This typicaly happens when shootng outside on a bright sunny day.
This effect is emphasized when your subject is relatively small in your frame. The problem stems from the fact that our eyes can see roughly about a 10 f stop range of light, compared to a typical dslr camera which can see around 5 stops worth. In order to expose a photo correctly you need to maintain details in both the highlights and shadows over about a 5 stop range. Based on this it is not hard to see that getting the exposure correct is crucial to getting good results.
How to Use Exposure Compensation
When you are shooting scenes that are either brightly lit or poorly light your should use your cameras exposure compensation feature to lighten or darken the exposure to compensate for the lighting conditions. Most cameras enable to to change the exposure over a range of about 6 stope (3 up and 3 down).
Usually the exposure compensation will be shown through the view finder as a mark on a scale that ranges from -3 to +3. Each mark in between this scale is equivalent to 1 f stop.
If shooting a very bright scene (such as a snapshot on a sunny beach) you will need to darken the shot by reducing the exposure or moving the dial to a negative (-) position. Conversely if shooting a dark scene increase the exposure by dialing in a positive (+) exposure compensation.
The easiest way to get used to using this feature is to play around with it. Next time you are out shooting on a sunny day take a series of shots in which in each one you reduce the exposure by dialing in a negative (-) exposure compensation and compare the resulting images.
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