Article Directory :: Arts & Entertainment Articles

Photo Exposure 101

By Autumn Lockwood

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 25Aug2010 Word count: 645 Viewed: 189 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

A picture is an instant in time created by the result of hundreds of tiny details merging together. That instant is measured by the exposure of the image and it's the exposure that has such a large impact on the final picture. Like every good photographer, you'll need to understand how to manipulate the exposure to get the results you want and with a little practice you'll soon understand the theory behind it.

What is Exposure?

In simple terms, exposure is the length of time a digital sensor or piece of film is given to absorb light. A long exposure will result in a washed out bright image, while a short exposure time will give you a dark or muddy looking image. The amount of available light has a major impact on exposure, however in almost any situation it is possible to over or under expose a photograph.

What Does Exposure Do?

Exposure affects quite a few elements of your final image. Most obviously, the length of a photograph's exposure will control how dark or light it turns out. In dark lighting situations, a longer exposure will be required to allow the camera more time to "see" the subject, whereas in bright lighting situations a fast exposure will prevent the film from being blinded. Exposure also has an impact on how blurry or sharp moving objects appear in an image. For example if you were to take a picture of a basketball player making a dunk, a fast exposure would give you a clear frozen image of the player making his shot. Don't worry about a little motion blur, but if the exposure isn't fast enough it's likely that the action shot will turn out bad.

And lastly, exposure also controls the depth of field. Depth of field determines how fast the background loses sharpness and how much of the picture is clearly focused. When you have a short exposure, the camera doesn't have as much time to absorb data so there is a more shallow depth of field. If you want a greater sense of depth, you can increase the exposure time but your image will have more motion blur.

How to Work with Exposure

By adjusting the shutter speed, you can control the exposure of any picture. Slow shutter speeds give you longer exposure times whereas fast shutter speeds give you very short exposure times. Depending upon what you're trying to accomplish with your image and the type of available lighting will determine if you need to have a long or short exposure. As an example, imagine shooting a photo of a child riding a bicycle on a summer afternoon. If you have a slower shutter speed or a long exposure, you will get motion blur as the child rides by on his bike but you may still see the background in focus. If you use a short exposure (or a high shutter speed) you will freeze the child in motion while blurring out the majority of the background.

In this particular case, a shorter exposure may be your best option if the light is so intense that a low shutter speed will over-expose your image. If you want to adjust your exposure you can reduce the amount of light that enters the lens by adjusting the aperture or f stop on your camera but often times your exposure is dictated by your light source.

Dealing with exposure is just one of the many ways that you can control the final output of your images beyond framing a subject and hitting the shutter button. When you can think about what your shutter speed means, you will be able to purposefully change the amount of motion blur and depth in every photograph you take. And fortunately with SLRs these days you can select your shutter speed and the camera will figure out everything else.

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here

More articles by Autumn Lockwood

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy Now:

Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!
Click For Details