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Chapter 2 Camera Handling, Care, and Support
Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc.
Exposure Compensation
Exposure compensation, Figure 2-11, allows
you to increase or decrease exposure in shutter
priority, aperture priority, or program AE modes.
Increasing the exposure lightens the image;
decreasing the exposure darkens it. Exposure
compensation can provide an increase or decrease
of as much as three stops, typically in one-third
stop increments.
Depth of Field Preview
When you look through the viewfinder of an
interchangeable-lens camera (usually referred to
as a single-lens reflex, or SLR), the scene you see is
not an accurate view of what will be in sharp focus
when the image is captured. To make the viewfinder
image as bright as possible, the lens is set to its widest
aperture. When you press the shutter release, the
lens stops down to the chosen aperture a fraction of a
second before the shutter opens.
Unless you are making your exposure using
the lens’ widest aperture, you cannot tell how
much of the scene will be in focus. For example,
when shooting a portrait where you want the
background in soft focus, the scene might look
fine at your lens’ widest aperture of f/4. Your
selected aperture of f/16, however, could render
the background as sharp as the portrait subject.
The depth of field (DOF) preview control,
found on most SLRs, allows you to see what the
scene will look like at the selected aperture. DOF
preview is usually activated by pressing a button.
This stops down the lens to the desired aperture.
The scene in the viewfinder will be darker,
since less light is entering, but will accurately
show the depth of field that will appear in your
captured image.
Focus Lock/Exposure Lock
As described in the preceding section on
shutter release, the focus lock function allows
you to set and hold focus, then recompose the
image. The exposure lock (AE lock) function
works similarly—after focusing on the desired
subject, the exposure reading for that subject can
be locked and the scene recomposed if necessary.
Exposure lock is useful for shooting subjects that
are backlit and for panoramic photography.
Burst Mode
For sports and other types of action
photography, making a series of exposures in
a second or less can allow you to capture the
peak of action or to show a sequence of actions,
Figure 2-12. Film cameras with electronic controls
and virtually all digital cameras can operate in a
continuous shooting mode, often referred to as a
burst mode. Depending on the camera model, the
number of possible exposures in the burst mode
ranges from two to eight or more per second.
A B
Jack Klasey/Goodheart-Willcox Publisher
Figure 2-11. Exposure compensation. A—The indicator is centered under the 0 point of the scale; the photo will be
exposed at the metered values. B—With the indicator moved to the left -1, the exposure will be darker; it will be made at
one stop under the metered values.