Camera Settings and Life
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Exposure Compensation.
This post started out being a technical post about exposure and the use of exposure compensation, however when I started to write the outline I realized that there are some very interesting parallels to wellbeing and living a balanced life, so here goes….
My middle grey screen which has seen better days. (iPhone image)
We’ll start off with a bit of technical stuff and I’ll try not to make it too dry. Our cameras are designed to measure the amount of light in a scene and to try and come up with a balanced exposure so that there are not areas that are too bright or dark - the camera is programmed to see the world at neutral or “middle grey” in order to not over or underexpose the scene. This is an important limitation to understand in cameras because it helps to identify when it’s a good idea to take control and use manual mode on a camera to get the exposures that you want.
Any camera used on Auto, Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority will try to expose the scene for a neutral or middle grey tone. There is an interesting exercise you can do if you have a DSLR or mirrorless camera. Set your camera on one of the above listed exposure modes and take a piece of white paper - fill the viewfinder with the white “scene” and take an image. Now repeat this with a black piece of paper and be sure to fill the viewfinder with the black “scene”.
Have a look at the images and you should see that the camera has rendered them both almost identical shades of grey - “middle grey” - this is what cameras are programmed to do and if that is not what we want then we must take control of exposure. This exercise was introduced to me in the A Year With My Camera course.
Photographing scenes with bright or dark elements
This is a really important thing to know when you’re trying to photograph snow scenes or black cats for example - the camera doesn’t want to show anything as too light (white) or too dark (black) so it tends to underexpose bright scenes (making snow scenes darker than they are or grey snow) and overexpose dark scenes (making black cats look lighter than they are). At first this seems counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you go back to the white and black paper images exercise we did above - the camera’s objective is to come up with a neutral exposure that is neither too light nor too dark - it wants to show everything as “average”.
Underexposed image to really focus on the drama of the flamingo. (EXIF data f3.2, 1/400s,105mm, ISO200, -1EV)
To me this feels very reminiscent of how I try to live my life - calm and in balance (I just moved away from the techie stuff to how exposure compensation relates to life - in case you missed that smooth transition). In fact I wrote about Daniel Seigal’s book The Whole Brained Child in this blog post where he explored the concept of emotional regulation.
In the book he explains the river of wellbeing (or emotional regulation) using the analogy of a person in a boat floating down the river and on one side is chaos or overwhelm and the other side is rigidity or perfectionism. In order to be in balance and harmony you want to be floating in the middle of the river - not bouncing off either bank of extremes and when you start to head to either bank you want to be able to course correct before you stray too close to the bank. This is very much like the camera seeing a scene with pure white (one bank of extreme conditions) or pure black (the other bank of extreme conditions) and to stay “emotionally regulated” or balanced exposure the camera will meter to middle grey - for the majority of the time this is likely what you want - to have good balanced exposure. It is also what we want in terms of emotional regulation - to live in harmony and not at the extremes of chaos or rigidity.
However, there are situations where being in the middle doesn’t work - a life lived in perfect harmony sounds wonderful in theory, but perhaps a little boring and a photograph of snow or a black cat rendered a dull grey colour doesn’t work so well either. In the same way a steady diet of “averagely exposed” can make for boring images - by that I mean that sometimes you need to move one way or the other in exposure to really create dramatic images - I spoke about how I do this in this blog post.
Correcting scenes with bright elements
Image with snow in the background metered on aperture priority mode - notice that the background snow is middle grey. (EXIF data f6.3, 1/1600s, 50mm, ISO640, no EV)
In practical terms using a snow scene as an example - allowing the camera to meter will result in grey or discoloured snow because the camera is trying to show a very bright and white scene as middle grey. The camera’s analysis for metering this scene is that it is overexposed (too bright) so the camera tries to bring the exposure back to middle grey by removing exposure (or light). - i.e., underexposing the image.
Same snow image with exposure compensation to add exposure and shift background to more realistic white. (EXIF data f6.3, 1/1600s, 50mm, ISO640, +1.33EV)
In order to make a more realistic image of the snow (i.e., truer to the white colours) you need to add exposure. In full manual mode this can be done either by slowing down the shutter speed (a slower shutter speed adds light by keeping the shutter open longer - think of the shutter as curtains - so this means leaving the curtains open longer to let in more light), or by using a larger aperture (smaller f number which corresponds to a bigger aperture opening which also lets in more light - think of the aperture like the pupil in your eyes - when the pupils are dilated and big this lets in more light than when they are small). A third way is through using a higher ISO number which also adds exposure.
When using either aperture priority, shutter priority or Auto ISO (my preferred set up with manual) it is best to add exposure through the exposure compensation +/- button on your camera (+ EV adds light or exposure and - EV takes away light or exposure).
Correcting scenes with dark elements - keeping the drama
The camera in auto mode tends to overexpose dark skies to achieve middle grey. (EXIF data f11, 1/400s, 35mm, ISO500, no EV)
For a dark scene such as a something with storm clouds or a dramatic forest scene with gloomy lighting you may want to showcase the drama, but the camera wants to expose to middle grey. The meter in the camera “sees” the dark clouds and wants to make them lighter to be middle grey, so the camera will add light or exposure which will in effect remove the dramatic details or overexpose the scene.
Same image with negative exposure compensation to keep the drama in the clouds and also shows the hint of blue sky on the right hand side. (EXIF data f11, 1/400s, 35mm, ISO500, -1EV)
To get it back to where you want in order to showcase the drama you’ll need to remove exposure or light (i.e., doing the opposite of the above snow scene through Aperture, shutter speed, ISO or EV). This is the same image with exposure compensation in the negative direction (removing exposure or light).
How this relates to life
Relating this back to everyday life and the river of wellbeing - for most of the time I want to be floating along in the middle of the river for a harmonious emotionally regulated life, but sometimes life throws me curve balls or opportunities to live life closer to either shore. This is what makes life more interesting and exciting.
How I respond to these shifts towards the banks is important to the quality of my life experience, because let’s face it - I’m going to head to either bank at some time or another and I may want to add spark to my life too. Being able to effectively embrace the dramatic shadows or the bright sparkles of highlights in life is much like how we can adjust our cameras to effectively meter the different extremes of the light in scenes. It provides more interesting photography images and a richer life experience.
The chaos from the fallout of the 2013 flood in Calgary when walking bridges over the Elbow River were destroyed felt similar to my experience during last year’s renovation. (EXIF data iPhone image)
An example of embracing/exposing for the darker scenes is our recent move and subsequent renovations (which threw me towards the bank of chaos and overwhelm).
My ability to recognize when I was heading to the bank of overwhelm emotionally and add exposure/light (i.e., taking breaks and recalibrating) allowed me to avoid the chaos and illuminate the shadows and enjoy moments of calmness to relax and restore my equilibrium.
Ok I will admit to taking this analogy a bit too far - my apologies!
Sunny days where you need shades (and a great adventure cat - Roxy). (EXIF data iPhone image)
In contrast, when I was heading towards the bank of rigidity and perfectionism I often felt like the light was overwhelmingly bright and I was trying to dim the brightness - to control the feelings of light intensity. By being able to let go of that need for control I was able to put on my shades and enjoy those moments and then head back to the middle of the stream when I was ready.
Not a perfect analogy, but I’m hoping it makes some sense.
Life and the camera
While this is not a perfect analogy/comparison, I think there are parallels to how I expose for a realistically or dramatically lit image and how I can live a dynamic life which embraces both of the banks of the river as well as the middle flow.
For those photographers reading this blog post - have you ever tried the auto metering of white or black cardstock to see the middle grey the camera tries to expose? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below or reach out to me directly by clicking on the Connect With Me button.
Fulmar nesting in Iceland - early morning light required a bit of overexposure to get the bird to remain white. (EXIF data f5.6, 1/800s, 400mm, ISO4000, +0.67EV)
I hope you’ll come back soon, share a cuppa, relax and enjoy more of my musings.
