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If you're using a digital file for direct printing or a transparency for projection or this is easy.
Just make it look right.
If the subject contrast was too great there is no correct exposure. You could lose your
highlights and your shadows at the same time! At best you might retain either one, but the
photo is still awful.
Optimum exposure is more complicated if you're editing the file before printing or scanning
or printing the transparency. In these cases you need to understand your use and your
medium before you make your image.
It's critical to preserve the highlights. Shadows are trivial to pull out in digital, and vary from
transparencies depending on your scanner.
Overexpose the highlights by as little as a third stop in digital and they're lost forever.
Slides are much easier: you might have a full stop of wiggle room. Luckily this is easy to
avoid in digital: look at a full RGB histogram and you can see if the highlights are lost.
Beware: single-color histograms are less than useless, since they usually miss blown out
highlights! See my RGB histogram (page 83) page for more.
Do Nikon Digital SLRs Underexpose?
This is why I wrote this article.
When I first used a Nikon D1X in 2001 I thought it was awful. If there was an open window
in an indoor shot it would underexpose horribly, or so I thought.
I was wrong. The shot looked dark because the D1X was exposing to preserve the
highlights. I was being a bad photographer having too much contrast and not doing enough
to add fill flash.
Digital cameras are supposed to make images look dark in high-contrast situations. You
easily can resuscitate the image in Photoshop's Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight
tool.
If the highlights were blown out instead, they're left as white blobs forever.
Many beginners think their cameras are underexposing. Nope. These photographers are
trying to photograph under crappy light. Turn on your flash to fill the shadows and see what
happens. Magic.
Nikon cameras are very smart. My D70 turns on its "Use Flash" bolt in broad daylight when
the contrast is too high. I'll bet you you ignore the "Use Flash" bolt in these conditions.
Nikon's flash bolt isn't a low light idiot light: it also warns of excessive contrast!
If you use fill flash and see the bolt blink rapidly right after your shot that means that the
flash ran out of power and the image may still be dark. Use a bigger aperture, get closer or
use a more powerful flash and you'll fix the problem far better that trying to pull your image
© 2007 KenRockwell.com 59 converted by Sándor Nagy