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The event of the Digital SLR along with the ability to see the Histogram (evaluation of the exposure) Some people are certainly put of by the graph when displayed, but really it is an invaluable aid to getting that correctly exposed picture.
So if when looking at the histogram you see all of the peaks sitting to the left of the screen the shot will be under exposed with clipping in the blacks. The inverse is also true but this time the shot will be over exposed with the whites being clipped.
What we are looking for is for the peaks to be spread across the screen, but not touching the edges forming a central hump. For those of you shooting JPEG this is fine and dandy, however with RAW shooters, the RAW file has some extra allowance so you can push them to the right by adjusting the EV compensation. Check your manual it’s easy.
A lot of the time it is perhaps better to go a little more into the over exposure side of things (of course with in reason) then bring the highlights back down with a RAW conversion program, or levels if shooting JPEG. However the line between adding noise in the dark areas and clipping the highlights is a fine line. So in essence when you take a test shot look at the Histogram and if there is a gap between the right hand edge and the edge of the box add some positive compensation and test again being careful not to clip the highlights. It is that easy!! So why do we keep getting it Wrong?
The Histogram
Next Month:
Watching your whites.
Watching your whites.
