EXPOSURE VALUE COMPENSATION

In all DSLR cameras we have an Exposure Value (EV) Compensation setting, but in compact cameras, it is automatically adjusted. This setting is required because sometimes camera make an incorrect assumption about the lighting when we try to take a photo of the bright object. Changing the EV assures that photos are almost correctly exposed.

What is the reason behind using Exposure Value Compensation?

Your camera tries to expose images correctly for scenes that have a mix of dark and light areas. This works well in most of the situation because our images normally tend to have brighter areas that may be in the form of artificial light or sunlight or sky and darker areas that can be shadows. When we keep the camera setting to Auto, the camera chooses a brightness setting in between the brightest and darkest areas and try to adjust the setting so as to expose the area correctly.

We may face a problem under a situation, When we try to capture a shot with a very bright environment like  a white sandy beach or snow, or very dark like deep forest scenes or sunset time. For very bright scenes, the camera tries to choose the grey color for the very bright part. This causes a scene with snow to appear grey because it is the mid color of white and black. Similarly, it does for the darker images.

When there is too much 'white' in the image, it fools the camera's settings and present it as grey.

Under different lighting conditions, how can we use Exposure Value Compensation?

The best way to use Exposure Compensation is to use them in a way that it adjusts the brighter and darker part well. The easy way to remember this is to use + digits when photographing bright objects or scene like snow or sand and - digits when photographing darker scenes.

Mainly a question is asked that if we have to use the EV then  can we use it for a brighter object to reduce the brightness?

For this question my answer is no, because we use EV compensation to fix the problem is grey color that appears in the photo of area covered with snow, the larger part of this photo is covered in snow means white color should appear but it doesn't happen, therefore, to get the correct exposure we have to set the EV compensation to positive (+) number.

The same case applies to darker images, because what camera does it considers the darkest point as the mid-point and brighten the other area of the photo.

Auto Exposure Bracketing is one of the modes but DSLR is meant to control the settings as per the situation and auto mode calculates on its own method which can be correct many a times and can also be wrong. Try to take hold of your camera as much as possible.

Below we will try to understand with an image of a flower was taken with different "EXPOSURE VALUE COMPENSATION".

EV+2                                EV+1                                 EV0                                  EV-1                               EV-2  

I hope that now you must be clear with the concept of Exposure Compensation and we will keep on moving with such topics.This does not only clears your concept but also helps me to study all the more for preparing a particular topic.

If you wish to comment something about this topic you are free to comment and let me also know if you are aware of some more details.