Hoo hoo! Time to put things all together now!
I’ve played with each of the three exposure elements and I know how adjusting them individually can change the outcome of the photo. Now that I’ve got an idea of how they work individually, I’m going to dive in on how to correctly expose a photo by balancing all three of them together.
{insert gentle splooshing water sound here – who am I kidding, my dive is more like a cannon ball}
ELEMENTS OF EXPOSURE
Remember that exposure is the amount of light being let into the camera and it is made up of three elements:
Getting the correct exposure involves adjusting these three elements until they’re balanced. I like to think of this like balancing a triangular block on a pedestal.
The adjustment of these elements is measured in Stops and changing the exposure by one Stop will either double or halve the amount of light being captured in the photo. Bearing this in mind along with the desired creative outcome, we can adjust these Stops to properly expose our photo. I find it really helps to visualize what kind of shot I want to capture first and then adjust my exposure settings to create the photo I have in my head. I’ll share an example of what I mean.
EXPOSURE EXPERIMENT
I was recently at Little Qualicum Falls on Vancouver Island and I wanted to capture a silky smooth waterfall shot. Here’s what my exposure settings were originally at:
And here’s the photo it took:
Notice anything off in the exposure settings sketch? My exposure bar was telling me that my photo was 3 Stops too dark. This is great news, because I want to slow down my Shutter Speed to capture the movement of the water. By slowing down my Shutter Speed, that means my shutter will be open longer which will let in more light! So, I slowed down my Shutter Speed by 3 Stops and voila!:
Here’s what my new exposure settings were at:
And here’s the new photo it took:
Check it out, the exposure bar in the new exposure settings sketch now shows that the photo is correctly exposed by sitting smack dab in the center!
HELPFUL EXPOSURE TABLE
Here’s a table to help visualize what I just did. These columns represent full stops for their respective Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO rows. In this table, moving towards the left will allow more light in, whereas moving right will let less light into the lens.
APPLYING THE KNOWLEDGE
EXAMPLE 1:
Now for some practice, let’s say the table below shows what the current camera settings are at in red and the exposure is 2 Stops too bright.
What can be done to properly adjust the exposure? Well, in looking where things are at, the Aperture at f/11 is a nice setting to ensure the photo will be sharp. ISO 100 will ensure the photo is not grainy plus it’s already as low as it can go. In this scenario, Shutter Speed looks to be the best element to adjust. If the current exposure is 2 Stops too bright, then increasing the Shutter Speed 2 Stops to 1/60 (which means one sixtieth of a second) will produce a correctly exposed photo! Another bonus to choosing Shutter Speed in this scenario is that if the shot is hand held, a faster Shutter Speed of one sixtieth of a second will help reduce camera shake (the blur seen in a photo when you don’t hold the camera still enough when taking the shot).
EXAMPLE 2:
Here’s another scenario. Let’s say in this table that the exposure is 4 Stops too dark.
Not many cameras can open up the Aperture more than f/1.4 so let’s just throw that option out the window right now. If we need to increase our exposure by 4 Stops, we could slow down our shutter speed to 1/15 but as per the note above, 1/15 will probably produce an image with camera shake if hand-held. So, let’s just decrease our Shutter Speed by 2 Stops instead. This will bring us to 1/60 which is more likely to produce a sharp image. This leaves us with 2 more Stops that we need to adjust. Well, ISO 400 is still a good setting to have so let’s bump up the ISO 2 Stops as well. There we have it. Another properly exposed photo, and this time we’ve achieved it by adjusting two exposure elements!
EXAMPLE 3:
Last one! Are you ready? Let’s say in this table that the exposure is 2 Stops too bright. (Fair warning, it’s tricky! I have no prizes to give away if you get it right, but maybe one day I will!)
Alright, so we know at ISO 100 we can’t drop the ISO any further (at least not on my camera), so that one’s out of the question. Shutter Speed looks like a good option though, so let’s increase the Shutter Speed by 2 Stops. That brings us to 1/15 which as we saw in the notes above will produce camera shake if the shot is hand-held. Let’s say this particular shot is hand-held. Well then, let’s increase the Shutter Speed 2 more Stops to bring us to 1/60. Great, we’ve eliminated camera shake, but now our shot is 2 Stops too dark. The only other option is to open up the Aperture, which we can do because f/8 is still a good setting to ensure the photo will be sharp. There we have it. The final photo properly exposed! If you got this right, you win a virtual high five, yay!
FINAL THOUGHTS
The key to remembering how to balance exposure is practice, so I’ll keep practicing and updating this as I go along and learn new tricks! To end things off, here’s my favourite shot that I took of Little Qualicum Falls from this day:
Are you smiling? Because I sure was when I took this shot!
Cindy
I love this explanation! It is so helpful because I’m just learning too. You almost had me on the last example! Great notes, thanks for sharing.
Claire
Yay! Thank you so much Cindy! That’s great news, good luck with your photography! Glad you liked it.
This is the best explanation that I as a novice photographer has ever seen on this topic. Thank you very much for sharing.
Thank you Issac! Your kind words truly mean so much. It was my pleasure to write and I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it.