EV Compensation - Taking Better Pictures Tutorial 2d

Sometimes in the semi-manual modes, like Tv and Av, you don't quite get the exposure you want. One option is to move into M mode so you control all the settings, but there is a nifty feature that will allow you to stay in your Tv or Av mode and correct the exposure from there. Lets say you are taking a picture of a building in the snow, or a person with the sun behind them and it is really bright. Well, if your camera is metering the whole scene to decide exposure, and it probably is unless you change it (more on this later), then all that bright area from the sun, or snow, is going to bring the overall exposure down a little bit. Remember your camera wants 18% reflection from the light so your building, or person, are going to be really dark, because they are in a really bright scene. So what we want to do is to force the camera to over expose the image. We want to tell the camera that we know it might be bright, but I want the subject exposed properly rather than everything so we can do that and it is done through EV Compensation.

You should see an Av lock button on your camera somewhere, and it looks like this:

On this image it is sitting next to the shutter button, it is that little button that looks like +/-. If your e-dial is on your thumb this button will be on your index finger, if the e-dial is near your index finger this button will be by your thumb. This button is actually really useful, and most likely will be needed when we talk about manual. This is your EV Compensation button. For our above example simply hold that button and turn your e-dial until the compensation is at +1, or somewhere near there. Now we are telling the camera to over expose by one full stop. So if we are in Av mode and are set at f/8 and the camera sees that to get proper exposure it needs a shutter speed of 250, it will see oh they want me to over expose by a full stop so I need to set the shutter speed to get a stop of light more. It will then set your camera to 125 to get you an extra stop of light. This will make your subject be better exposed, and will probably over expose the snow, but hey snow is already white anyway. This is a handy way to get manual like control in Av or Tv modes. There is a limitation though, you can only go so many stops in each direction. A lot of cameras will limit you to only compensating for 2 full stops in either direction, some might let you compensate as much as 3 stops. If you need any more than that you have to use manual. It is because of the EV Compensation that I rarely shoot in M.

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