Detailed Photos with the Right Exposure

Right Exposure is a technique often unknown photographers with little experience. It requires only a little more work in post production and a little more time at the time of shooting. In return, however, Right Exposure allows you to maximize the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor, thus maximizing the details and minimizing the noise in our photographs.

What Does it Mean by the Phrase Right Exposure ?

The name of this technique comes from the form it takes when the histogram is applied. By using the histogram relative to a photo, we can say that the exposure is correct if it takes the form of a bell, if these concepts you are new, we will suggest you read the article on histogram. The right exposure move the histogram curve precisely to the right. More precisely, the goal is to push the curve as much as possible to the right edge of the histogram, without going over. But why?

Without going into too much technical detail, we can say that the sensors of digital cameras acquire more information in the brighter areas of the picture and then areas further to the right side of the histogram. Therefore, as we move to the left or you move to the darker areas, the ratio of the signal and noise is in favor of the latter. In other words, in the darker areas there is more noise than lighter ones.

If we want to move to the right with proper exposure without losing, noise will be amplified. The pixels that were right in highlight areas, will simply be darkened.

How You Can Apply the Right Exposure ?

First, if you want to use this technique, it is almost mandatory to use the RAW format . In some cases, it may also work on photos in JPEG format, but it is rather unlikely.

The camera will have the exposure compensation or manual mode. Read this popular article with excellent illustration – What Camera Mode to Choose Depending on the Situation. We have to use a non-automatic shooting mode, such as aperture priority mode or shutter priority mode. Many camera models are equipped with one of these functions. Surely all DSLR cameras and bridge cameras has these functions.

If we use a semi-automatic shooting mode, to expose to the right, we have to set a positive value for exposure compensation. To decide which value is the right, we have to go by trial and error. The procedure to follow is this:

1. Take a picture without exposure compensation,
2. Look at the histogram: if you have already moved to the right, the photo is already exposed to the right,
3. But if there is room to move the histogram to the right, try to set the exposure compensation value of +1 stop,
   take a picture,
4. Look at the histogram: if the curve already exceeds the right boundary, we decrease the exposure compensation in 1/3 stop and go back to step 4,
   if there is still room to move the histogram to the right, we increase the exposure compensation to a stop and go back to step 4.

When we use the manual mode, the procedure is similar. The only difference is that instead of using the exposure compensation, we will decreasing the opening or we will increase the exposure time. Those who have driven manual cars, funnily knows, it is nothing but a kind of reflex that automatically develops when we want to shift the first gear at slowest possible speed – the release of the clutch pedal is quite difficult to a beginner, but with minimum effort, we basically develop our own method of the slow release. Exact thing goes with Right Exposure.