Digital Photography

When you shoot in any autoexposure mode — full auto, scene modes such as Portrait or Landscape, or semi-automatic modes such as shutter-priority and aperture-priority autoexposure — the camera’s autoexposure brain determines what constitutes a good exposure and then adjusts the necessary exposure settings (f-stop, aperture, and ISO) accordingly. That’s all well and good, but what if you disagree with the exposure results? Easy: You can use a feature called EV Compensation to tell the camera to produce a picture that’s a little brighter or darker than what it originally delivered. (The EV in EV Compensation stands for exposure value.)

Using this control is easy. Here’s what you need to know:

• Look for a button or menu option that’s marked with a +/- sign (like this ) or the sign along with the letters EV.
• The available settings are presented either with a plus sign, such as EV +0.3, or a minus sign, such as EV -0.3.
• A setting of EV 0.0 indicates that no exposure adjustment will be made.
• If you want your next shot to be brighter, dial in a positive EV number; for a darker picture, select a negative EV number. The balloon photo here, from my book Nikon D60 For Dummies, offers just one example. In the original shot, the sky is perfectly exposed but the balloon is too dark. Raising the EV value to +1.0 produced a better result.
• EV settings are typically available in either 1/2-step increments, such as +0.5, +1.0, +1.5, and so on, or in 1/3-steps, such as +0.3, +0.7, and +1.0. The range of settings you get, and therefore the level of exposure adjustment you can make, varies from camera to camera.
• How the camera arrives at the brighter or darker image depends on your exposure mode. In shutter-priority mode, for example, the camera will stick with the shutter speed you selected and adjust either ISO or f-stop to produce the darker or brighter exposure. In Full Auto mode, the camera may adjust shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, or all three as needed.

Only one word of caution: Depending on your camera and the exposure mode, the EV setting may or may not automatically be reset to a neutral EV 0.0 when you turn off the camera or switch exposure modes. If your camera doesn’t reset the option for you, it’s a good idea to get into the practice of resetting to EV 0.0 yourself after you’ve gotten the shot you’re after. Otherwise, you may forget that exposure compensation is in force.

EV, Exposure

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