Underexposing on Digital Cameras

An argument can be made that you should underexpose (by 1/3 to 1/2 an f-stop) all images you take with your digital camera. These cameras use sensors that do a better job than film and storing subtle detail in shadow (dark) areas, but do a poorer job than film in storing details in areas that are very near bright white. Underexposing helps to work around this characteristic.

Consider the following 3 images for a rather extreme example (having the sun in the picture exaggerates the effect). These are all from Ken Rockwell's site on digital photography (www.kenrockwell.com). (He is a very good reference on using and reviewing digital cameras.) The scene is a beach with partly cloudy skies. There are areas of bright sunlight in the sky that are the problem. The first image shows a normally exposed image. The upper left sky area has detail in the brightest areas "washed out."

The second image is better. The bright sky has more detail. How was it produced?

He shot the third image with the camera set to underexpose by 1 f-stop. It looks too dark. But Ken loaded this into Photoshop and, brightened the image (through levels), to produce the second image. Compare the three.

 

Page created 10 July 2006

Author Bob Fry

Modified June 22, 2009