In photography, the one thing that many people struggle with is explaining why exposure is important. You may have seen or experienced photos where there are plenty of lights but none of the subjects is visible. This is because the camera’s lack of exposure control means that everything is captured with the greatest possible amount of light available – regardless of how it looks in real life.
The problem with this is that the result is completely unnatural. The subject in the foreground has all of his or her colours captured – but because the shadows have been taken out, everything else about them looks a little weird. To a photographer, this is a complete mismatch. Fortunately, new digital cameras have systems that automatically do this for you, and so you shouldn’t even need to worry about it.
As you can imagine, shooting with natural light isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But there are some photographers who swear by their ability to take excellent photographs without any kind of artificial lighting. This is partly because digital photography lets you see the results of your shots immediately. No paper negatives or rolls of film are necessary, and you can edit anything that you see in the camera’s preview mode.
Of course, there are still times when using digital photography means that you’re going to need more than just a good light meter. There are lots of different reasons why exposure is important in digital photography. One of the biggest is because of the wide variety of lighting conditions that a photographer might face. One type of lighting condition that is often seen is low light. In this case, you really need to make sure that your camera has an adequate-quality white balance setting.
Low light conditions require that a photographer have a good eye for composition. Remember, the goal of a portrait shot is to catch the subject in the act, not the background. This means that you should avoid photographing anything too dark or bright. All in all, photography is about knowing your limits and working within them.
One of the most important reasons that make exposure important is that it can allow you to create prints that are far more beautiful than you could get with a traditional photograph. After all, when a picture is taken with the best possible light conditions, it can look incredibly beautiful, no matter what subject it is.
