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Why Getting The Right Exposure Matters

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When it comes to photography in any genre exposure plays an important role which can take an image from good to great. But what happens when you shoot an image that is underexposed or overexposed?

Underexposed images are when not enough light is allowed or available to pass through to the sensor which in turn creates a darker than normal image. A lot of times you can adjust underexposed pictures by bumping up the ISO, slowing down the shutter speed, or using the widest aperture you have available.

Overexposed images are the exact opposite where the picture is entirely to bright or “blown out.” To much light was allowed to pass onto your cameras sensor which distorts the image.

Now assuming you are shooting in raw (which you should be) then you may be able to restore your under or overexposed picture in Lightroom.

But is it better to have a picture that’s underexposed or do you want one that’s overexposed?

Well, I just happened to take two very similar pictures with one being underexposed and the other overexposed and there’s a bunny involved! (Thankfully the bunny didn’t ask me to sign a release waiver.)

The below image was shot at 1/160 of a second at f / 14, ISO 100 during midday. I adjusted the exposure for the bunny on the right to +3.57 in Lightroom.

What happens when an image is underexposed?

As you can see although the detail in the top left picture is quite hard to make out from the original shot due to the lack of proper exposure but when adjusted I was able to bring the detail back during post processing.

There is a down side to adding a lot of exposure to an originally dark image and that comes at the cost of increase noise into your image which can be seen here from a 100% crop.

noisyeye

While the image is technically “usable” for some minor web related stuff such as this article I wouldn’t use it for any type of print material.

By increasing the exposure I may have brought detail back into the image I also added in a lot of noise.

 

 

This image was shot at 1/10 of a second at f /5, ISO 100 during midday. I adjusted exposure for the bunny on the right to -3.57 in Lightroom as well.

overexposedrabbit

Here you can see the top left image has almost no detail and is blown out to the extent that upper left section of the image is almost nothing but white light.

In doing the exact opposite of the underexposed image I adjusted the exposure on this image by moving the slider to -3.57 in Lightroom.

However because so much light passed onto the sensor the detail of the scene could not properly be saved to the camera. All the camera saw was a bunch of white light with a few pieces of color.

This caused the image on the right to lose a lot of detail and when decreasing the exposure it also distorted whatever colors the camera was able to pick up initially and corrupting the scenes true colors.

So the answer to whether or not its better to be underexposed or overexposed should be pretty easy to put together. You have more of a chance of being able to save an underexposed picture than you do of one that’s been overexposed.

But you should ALWAYS be trying to get a proper exposure beforehand by taking test shots and studying your surrounding area and environment.

Plus you’ll have to spend less time post processing pictures for exposure adjustments if you get it right the first time!

The post Why Getting The Right Exposure Matters appeared first on iHeartPhotos.


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