exposure

The "Exposure Donut" is a new way to understand manual exposure controls on a mirrorless camera. Created by British engineer and photographer Tim Helweg-Larsen, the Exposure Donut, or Expodo, is a software tool designed to simplify exposure on mirrorless cameras.

When compared to the other components of the exposure triangle (shutter speed and aperture), ISO appears to be the most intuitive on the surface. It is also the most misunderstood component, and everything from its definition to its usage has been discussed extensively.

As perhaps the most important parameter to understand in photography, shutter speed should be one of your first considerations when making a photograph. It’s one of the biggest reasons that photographers might find themselves unhappy with their shots, and having a great understanding of it is crucial to making great images.

Aperture can seem like one of the most challenging camera settings to fully understand, but once you understand it, your photography will improve immensely.

If you didn’t believe your grade school math teachers when they said you’d use graphs in the real world, you’re about to. In photography, histograms can seem intimidating, but they are incredibly useful tools that are much easier to understand than they appear. Learning about histograms will help you understand exposure, post-processing, and the overall structure of a photograph.

When you hear “long exposure,” you probably think of a shutter speed that’s too slow to hand-hold and produce a sharp image. It might be something like ¼”, or maybe as long as 30”, which is the most common slowest shutter speed in DSLR and mirrorless cameras. However, shutter speeds slower than 30” can be advantageous in many long-exposure scenarios.

You're out in the field, having scouted out a new location to grab a landscape vista. You release the shutter button and then chimp the back of the camera to see what you've captured... the sky's blocked out, blinking back at you. You've got a dreaded case of the blinkies, but does it actually matter?

In a world of increasing automation, at least photography still offers the opportunity to stay alert, active, and in command. While intimidating at first, shooting in full manual mode provides creative control, proper metering in tricky light, and deeper integration into the entire process of making photos. If you give it time, manual photography can help you craft your best images.

The Sunny 16 Rule is one of the simplest rules in photography that helps you gain correct exposure. It’s a formula that will tell you what shutter speed to use on a bright sunny day when the lens’s aperture is set to f/16.

An unofficial anthem for creative professionals has resurfaced as a playful and passive-aggressive way to explain why projects cost what they do and can't be paid for in exposure. (Warning: This song and article contain profanity).

So you’ve gotten pretty good at photography. Now what? If you’re like a lot of people, the idea of turning this creative outlet into a career might sound like an enticing next step. Many of us struggle with how to get started though.

Technology Connections, a YouTube channel that covers a wide array of interesting technology stories, has shared this 28-minute video that explores how the Canon F1 from 1971 works, with special detail focused on the camera's light meter.

Photographer Robert Hall recently released a simple-yet-brilliant explainer that uses water to illustrate the properties of light and explain a few concepts that frequently confuse beginners, including: what is a "stop" of light, how do you use the exposure triangle, and how do various flashes and flash modifiers affect your image.

Have you ever seen long exposure images shot using 10-stop ND filters? They are visually energetic and dynamic due to the motion blur caused by the moving clouds over a long duration of exposure.

When it comes to Lightroom alternatives, nobody has taken more users away from Adobe than Capture One Pro. But if you've never used Capture One and you need a crash course on the basics, Ted Forbes of The Art of Photography has put together a helpful video that you might find handy.

There is a lot to dive into when it comes to perfecting and understanding exposure. In this video and article (part one of a two-part series), we’ll be covering important in-camera functionalities such as using the Highlight Alert, your Histogram, how to set up Display Brightness, as well as the importance of shooting a flat Picture Style to get the right information.

Perhaps one of the more difficult aspects of landscape photography is determining how to properly expose your scene under less-than-ideal lighting conditions. These types of situations are a common occurrence with outdoor photography as it’s often a struggle trying to properly expose an image consisting of a bright sky and a dark foreground in a single image.

Photographer Jessica Kobeissi made this 5-minute video that has hit a nerve with many of her 1.3+ million followers on YouTube. She shares thoughts on why it's difficult for photographers to get paid fairly for work these days, arguing that by undercutting each other and working for little or no money, some photographers are lowering the bar for everyone else in the industry.

Using a graduated neutral density (GND) filter is fairly easy and doesn’t require any advanced techniques in post-production, but the easiest option isn’t always the best choice; due to the filter’s transition being horizontal, anything above the distinction will be darkened and anything below will be left alone.

In this article, we are going to be talking about 3 different ways you can set the right exposure for film. The biggest thing for beginning film photographers is to learn is how to meter your film properly. For our example today, I’m going to be shooting on Portra 400 and Fuji 400, and the Portra 800.

You've probably learned about the exposure triangle countless times by now. If you want a deeper understanding of the science of exposure, though, check out this 30-minute video by Filmmaker IQ.

Instagram is a great platform for making connections and getting work out there to the masses. Reach hasn't been affected like it has on Facebook just yet. However, on the topic of getting your work out there, "feature accounts" have really begun to take hold.

Kodak's Portra 400 film is praised for its versatility, but exactly how well does it handle underexposure and overexposure? How far can you push things before your photos become unusable? Canadian photographer Kyle McDougall decided to find out by doing his own test.

In 2011, Olympus was rocked by a financial scandal after it fired its British CEO who had raised questions about over $1 billion in questionable "acquisitions" between 2006 and 2008. As the truth was uncovered, seven Olympus officials were arrested for fraud and the former CEO settled a lawsuit for $15.5 million. Now the famous camera brand's scandal is being made into a TV series.

Once you understand how to read a histogram, it becomes an extremely useful display of the data that your camera is seeing. This 10-minute video from Steve Perry examines what histograms are, how to use them to check exposure, and some tips for avoiding exposure clipping.

Shooting RAW gives you a lot of latitude to make exposure adjustments in post, but it’s still vital to understand how to correctly expose a scene to avoid clipping highlights and destroying shadows. This 3-part series from photographer Greg Benz will teach you everything you need to know to get the shot.

The Illuminati is the world's first Bluetooth light and color meter that works wirelessly with smartphones. It's a battery-powered device that connects to your iOS device, Android or smartwatch over Bluetooth, allowing you to take live readings without stepping away from your camera.