Lighting plays the major role in the photographing process. No matter how good is your composition, if the lighting is not good, then the whole photo will not be good either. It has this power to ruin a good image and make it useless, but it also has the power to make an ordinary photo, a great work of art. That’s why the camera should be set to collect the correct amount of light.
Exposure is the amount of light that is collected by the photographic medium, whether it is a film or a digital sensor, while shooting a single photograph. There is no fixed value of a correct amount of light, because it depends on the available lights, the objects, and the photographer’s judgment. However, it is safe to say that there’s an acceptable exposure and an unacceptable exposure. Most exposures that obscure details while not adding any artistic value are considered unacceptable.
Basically, a dark scene will need long exposures, allowing more light to be collected by the sensor, which translates to a well exposed photograph. Otherwise, the photograph will be underexposed, having too many dark areas, the dark objects loosing their details, and the bright objects becoming dull. Alternatively, a bright scene will need short exposures, limiting the amount of light collected by the sensor, yielding a well exposed photograph. If more exposure is used, the photograph will become too bright with many blown highlights.
The camera controls the exposure through shutter speed and aperture. Shutter speed controls the time for which the shutter will stay open. Slow shutter speed means more exposure, while fast speed will allow less exposure. On the other hand, aperture controls the degree of openness of the lens. Narrow aperture will let less light pass through it than a wide aperture. ISO speeds also affect the degree of exposure. Higher ISO speeds will make the sensor more sensitive to light, reducing exposure, but it will add undesired noise to the photos.
When manually setting the exposure, the photographer usually sets the aperture and the shutter speed independently. When automatic exposure is used instead, the camera will calculate the optimum exposure based on the light meter used. Because of the lack of manual controls over exposure in many low-end cameras (including most digital compact cameras), exposure compensation (if available) should be used to fine tune the automatic exposure suggested.
Photographs with very dark and very bright spots will not show correct exposure on all their parts using any type of cameras. Usually, photographers take the same photograph at different exposures, and combine them together using software programs.
A good approach to learn more about exposure is to look at the exposure settings of your previous photographs, and compare them Look for the exposure time (shutter speed), the aperture, the ISO speed, and the exposure compensation in the data that is stored in your image files. As a result, you will get a clearer idea on how exposure can impact your photos.
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