Compensation + or -

mac66

Senior Member
Compensation; Plus or minus, when to use it and how much? A lot of articles, I've read of late, suggest that a lot of photographers, never use more than +1 to-1 for compensation. I suppose a lot of them use 0.0 then do their work in post processing. What are your thoughts on compensation?
 

J-see

Senior Member
If you use exposure compensation, keep an eye on your histogram. The moment you're pushing something off the side, it does more harm than good. I rarely use it since I can change a lot in post.
 

mac66

Senior Member
If you use exposure compensation, keep an eye on your histogram. The moment you're pushing something off the side, it does more harm than good. I rarely use it since I can change a lot in post.

I haven't gotten into the Histogram thing yet, yet I hear if it's in the middle, It's a good shot! (All I know, lol)! But like my daddy used to say, (He was an old carpenter/homebuider); "If it looks good to your eye, it's good enough!"
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Compensation; Plus or minus, when to use it and how much? A lot of articles, I've read of late, suggest that a lot of photographers, never use more than +1 to-1 for compensation. I suppose a lot of them use 0.0 then do their work in post processing. What are your thoughts on compensation?


Just do what you see you need to do.

If the image is darker than you want, then use + EV exposure compensation (or + EV flash compensation), to take the second try.

If it is too bright, then turn it down (- EV compensation).

This problem is shown at How Camera Light Meters Work

On Nikon cameras (menu exceptions can be selected on the most recent 3 or 4 models), Exposure compensation affects both ambient light and TTL flash. Flash compensation only affects TTL flash.

With just a little experience (and thinking), we quickly learn to just simply see this in the scene when we first walk up, and know about how much compensation to dial in, in advance of the first shot.


The only one single reasonable use of the histogram is to judge brightness by judging how close the data comes to the right end side of the histogram. This does make the assumption that there are some bright areas or colors of the scene that ought to be that bright (it is not always the best answer, because scenes vary in content).

But for sure (no exceptions), if data is stacked up as a tall thin spike right at the right end, that is clipping (over exposure), and must be corrected with compensation.

To see this clipping, it is mandatory to watch the three individual RGB histograms.
The one single gray histogram is less than useless, it won't see the clipping.

Two types of Histograms

The one single gray histogram is Not real data. It is a mathematical manipulation simulating gray scale brightness (luminosity). But our color pictures are not grayscale, and the one single histogram is worthless for our purpose.
 
Last edited:

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
The histogram has nothing to do with getting stuff in the middle - it's all about the edges and making sure that you don't have walls at either end, and particularly not to the right (whites).

I was shooting yesterday into a bright morning sun and needed to shoot at -2EV in some cases to keep from losing highlights. I could have compensated by changing the metering mode as well, if I was concerned with how much I was compensating, but in the end it's all about making sure you don't lose light information.

Knowing how to read a histogram and what it means to the shot you just took is one of the most important things you can learn after the basics of exposure. It will tell you if you have a shot that you can salvage in post, provided you're shooting RAW, or if you better adjust and shoot again because you don't have your shot.

Here are a couple places to start in understanding what you're looking at. There's probably better resources, but these are sufficient to give you a start.

Understanding Histograms

 

mac66

Senior Member
Thanks for that video. Would reccomend this to anyone. Great explantion on the Histogram and how to use it. Would have never known, the kind of information if can give related to light compensation.
 

mac66

Senior Member
The Image Maven, (A selection on the above video is really good). She lays out the areas of the Histogram; Shadows, Midtone, Brightness, and also shows how it affects the shot. There maybe more videos on this, but all of them are excellent so far. Everyone, not familiar with compensation or the Historgram, should check these out. Very interesting and worthwhile to spend the time to learn these!!

The one imprtant thing, I learned from this video: You can capture the details of the RAW image even if the shot is not that good, but if details are not caputured correctly in JPEG, you can't get them back.
 
Last edited:

mac66

Senior Member
The Image Maven, (A seelction on the above video is really good). She lays out the areas of the Histogram; Shadows, Midtone, highlights, and also shows how it affects the shot. There maybe more videos on this, but all of them are excellent so far. Everyone, not familiar with compensation or the Historgram, should check these out. Very interesting and worthwhile to spend the time to learn these!!
 

J-see

Senior Member
The one imprtant thing, I learned from this video: You can capture the details of the RAW image even if the shot is not that good, but if details are not caputured correctly in JPEG, you can't get them back.

I just so happen to take a pretty mediocre shot today that I could have tweaked up a little when adjusting some settings while shooting JPEG but because I shot RAW, I could pull something completely else out of it.

Original RAW (or JPEG if I shot that):

403.jpg

Processed RAW:

403-Edit-2.jpg

This is why I always shoot RAW.
 

mac66

Senior Member
Very nice indeed. I'm learning you can do things like this in RAW, but if you are unable to edit in RAW, there are small tweaks you can do to a JPEG also. Not as much detail, not as much tweaking, but some. ;
 

J-see

Senior Member
Very nice indeed. I'm learning you can do things like this in RAW, but if you are unable to edit in RAW, there are small tweaks you can do to a JPEG also. Not as much detail, not as much tweaking, but some. ;

You indeed can. I used some of them when I shot JPEG but they're a bit limited and a pain to adjust once finalized as a JPEG. But you don't need to shoot RAW to get a good shot.
 

aroy

Senior Member
Compensation +
. When I know the meter will shoot dark
. With flash to extend the range, especially inbuilt one which has a range of 1m at f11. Giving it +2 or +3 extends the range a lot
. While shooting for HDR : 0, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5

Compensation -
. With my 35mm f1.8 DX. If over saturates the reds, hence at least -1 and at times -2
. When shooting in manual mode with AIS lenses. mostly I set it brighter and then adjust it with -.
. When I want to subdue the flash power. I use - when it is bright light, and compensate the flash when it is dusky. In full darkness for near subjects it is flash at -1.
. While shooting for HDR : 0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5

With my D3300 I have noticed that overexposure of upto +1 is remedied in post. Underexposure is also remedied in post but at the expense of noise. If I want noise free shadows, and the DR is not much then exposing for highlights works, else if DR is large and I want clean shadows it is HDR.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
If you are shooting in aperture priority, here are a couple rules of thumb:

If the scene is bright or overly white (as in snow-covered), the meter will read the scene and underexpose. So when your scene is extremely bright or you are shooting lots of snow or ice, you should adjust the + button. When it's bright, go brighter.

If the scene is somewhat dark or is a night shot, then the meter will read the scene and overexpose. For these photos, you need to adjust the - button. When it's dark, go darker.

Of course there will be exceptions which will depend on each individual scene and the desired outcome.
 
Top