Exposure

Reading the book is teaching me a lot of new terms ALL the time. I am new to photography and before I started this class I didn't know anything about it, not even what exposure was. Now I am trying to learn all these terms. I used the internet and the book Natonal Audubon Society Guide to Nature Photography to even be able to write something about exposure.

Exposure is the total amount of light that reaches the film. It is controlled by aperture size and shutter speed, and it can either be set automatically or manually. To be able to set the right exposure checking the histogram on the screen is the key. You adjust the shutter speed and the aperture size until you get the correct exposure. It takes some practice to find the right exposure so I guess I should start parctice it

It is extremly important to be able to know it quickly because if you don't, the scene that you wanted to take a picture of can be gone. 

There are three different exposure modes, those are aperture priority, shutter priority and manual mode. Aperture mode, also called AV mode, is that you set the aperture and the camera automatically sets the shutter speed. It's the best mode to use for all subjects, since it prioritizes depth of field. Shutter priority is almost like aperture mode but you set the shutter speed instead of the aperture and then the camera sets the aperture for you. Not a lot of nature photographers use this mode. The last mode is Manual Mode, which means that you set both shutter speed and aperture manually based on light meter readings.

I like the part in the book about difficult exposure settings, those are good things to start with as an amateur photographer. The book explains how easy it is to set the wrong exposure when it's unusually light or dark out. The example we talked about in class was the bear, how the black bear doesn't look black so you need to over expose to get the right color of the bear. That's something that I didn't know before reading the book.

Now when I'm taking pictures I will be thinking about exposure and personally I prefer when the pictures are a little underexposed just so that they don't get to bright. Darker pictures are really pretty to me because they look very mysterious. Now that I know more about it, I'm going to think about it and  adjust it when I take pictures.