Example of Over Exposure and Under Exposure

Here’s an image that illustrates what Under Exposed images, correctly Exposed images and Over Exposed images look like.

Over and under exposed images

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Photo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Example of Over Exposure and Under Exposure”

  1. wendy says on November 28th, 2007 at 10:11 pm :

    Hi,
    Most of the photos I have taken resonantly have been over exposed even set on auto setting.

    What should I do?

    I have a Nikon 40DX

    Thanks

  2. Garry says on November 29th, 2007 at 9:28 am :

    If most of your images are coming out over exposed then there could be a number of reasons why this is happening.
    Are they landscape shots with lots of sky in, or are they more varied pictures with all sorts of lighting conditions in them?
    Have you tried any other setting, other than auto? Do they still come out too light?
    The thing to do is to take some test shots under the same conditions, first of all use the auto mode and then try either aperture priority or shutter priority to give you more control. Take the same shot at various shutter speeds or apertures and see if your images are still over exposed.
    If you have one of the pictures I can see, either on a web site or just email it to me (as long as the file size isn’t too large) - garry@photography-basics.com then maybe I can get a better idea as to why they might be over exposed.

  3. Ian says on March 31st, 2008 at 12:03 am :

    What’s the best solution in taking pictures of both light and dark people?

    Many of my shots, tends to show dark people too dark. Is there anything that I can do to correct this?

    I have a Nikon D80 with a SB800 flash.

  4. Garry says on March 31st, 2008 at 8:47 am :

    taking pictures which have both dark and light subjects in the same shot is always going to be difficult whatever type of picture it is. Here a few ideas which might help.
    If the dark areas are always too dark then you can try using the exposure compensation and increase it by a stop or two. This is usually done with a +/- button which lets you increment the exposure settings in small amounts. So a slight over exposure will help with the dark areas.
    Try and expose for a mid tone, by this I mean when you point the camera, aim it at a mid tone, so not a shadow or highlight and press the shutter half way down, then move the camera to compose the full shot (while making sure everything is still in focus). This makes the camera set any exposure values for the mid tone and should give you a more even exposure.
    Shoot in RAW format as this gives you the most latitude for adjustments in the computer afterwards. So you can reduce shadows and highlights in photoshop (or similar software) giving you detail in both the shadow areas and highlight areas.

  5. Ian says on March 31st, 2008 at 11:07 pm :

    Thanks Gary for all the info. I guess I will have to practice these shots until I can get it right.

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