Bracketing

Exposure is a big deal in capturing those images just the way you want. In previous posts I have mentioned aperture, white balance, ISO, shutter speed, etc. These things play into the overall exposure of a picture. I am learning that a photo that is overexposed is kind of washed out looking. An underexposed picture would be on the dark side. Sometimes, a photographer might choose to over or under expose a picture for artistic purposes. As I have been learning about this, I have begun to notice exposure in other photos. I am really loving this learning process! Before, I might have seen a photo and have been disappointed in the result or quality but not have known why. Now, there have been a few times that I have thought, 'Well, that doesn't look quite right.'-- but then I realize it has been overexposed or underexposed. 


When lighting is questionable, and manually playing with settings in the moment isn't preferable, there is a neat setting on my camera that I was able to experiment with yesterday. It is called Bracketing. Bracketing refers to over and under exposing a picture by a certain degree. So, I can turn on the bracketing feature, set the value of exposure (I don't really know what that is called at this point, but basically you can adjust how far out you want to camera to over/under expose to different degrees), and then shoot your picture three times. One picture will be a normal value, one will over expose to the set degree, and one will under expose to the set degree. Pretty cool! At this point, though, my mind hasn't fully grasped what the camera is doing to meet those exposure variations. I like to understand the why of things so I plan to keep reading about that. 

Under Exposure
Aperture Priority Setting
F5.6, shutter 1/1250
ISO 400, WB shade
Value: -1.0
July 16, 2012

Normal Exposure
Same settings
Speed: 1/640
July 16, 2012

Over Exposure
Same Settings
Speed: 1/320
Value: +1.0
July 16, 2012


Notice how the the slower shutter speeds allows for overexposure-more light. Makes sense, right?

Image 347

Under Exposure

Shutter Speed Priority

F29, Speed 1/100

ISO 400, WB Cloudy

Value: -1.0

July 16, 2012

Image 349- Normal Exposure
Same Settings
F13

Image 348- Over Exposure
Same settings
F14
Value: +1.0