Pixiq

As in all photography there are no one right way, although many seminar speakers may disagree arguing that only their way is the one, true perfect road to correct exposure. I disagree. There is no “my way or the highway,” you get to choose the method that works for you. Even a road less traveled is OK if it produces the results you want. If it doesn’t its time to look at alternatives and fine-tune them to your favored subject matter and preferred way of working.

If we have a hand-held or manual light meter setting for a subject that was 1/500 sec at f/11 and want to use a slower shutter speed to allow for subject blur and choose 1/125 sec then you will have to adjust the aperture (make it smaller) so that that the same (equivalent) amount of light will fall on the camera’s sensor. By selecting aperture (Av)  or shutter priority (Sv) mode, your camera determines the equivalent exposure for you, eliminating all of the guesswork.

But there’s more to proper exposure, which is when your camera’s exposure compensation feature comes in handy. One of the first tips I give aspiring car photographers is that they should underexpose black cars and overexpose white ones. Exposure for the black E-type Jaguar above was 1/320 at f/11 and ISO 200, one and one-third stops less that the indicated exposure. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense: By forcing the exposure to middle gray tones, you end up with a white car that looks gray and a black car that looks gray too. That’s why you should underexpose black cars and overexpose white ones.

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