We know many of you have digital cameras, and love to take your own family photographs. Perhaps you, like many other people, have been disappointed in the quality of the images you get from your camera. You had your camera set on automatic, but it just doesn't look right when you view it on the computer.
The histogram: That scary little chart that is your secret weapon!
(Image borrowed from Adorama Imaging's 100 in 100 web page - see information below)
Photography is the art and science of recording light. In fact, that is what the word "photography" means: light writing. Since the heart of capturing light is exposure, here are a couple tips to help you with this, sometimes, complicated task.
There are 4 settings on your camera which will allow you to achieve a great exposure:
- Shutter speed - represented in increments which appear on your camera as 1000, 500, 250, 125, 60, 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1. There are also many increments in between, above, and below these on many cameras. The numbers listed here are "full" stops. Numbers in between are either 1/3 or 1/2 stops. For example, you may see on your camera, 125, 160, 200, 250... etc. 125 and 250 are the "full" stops, while 160 and 200 are 1/3 stops in between.
Make sense so far? - Aperture - represented by "full" and incremental stops on your camera also. The "full" stops are 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32. When you see these written, perhaps in your owners manual, you may see them preceeded by the letter "f". These are also known as f-stops, and appear, in writing, like "f16," etc.
- ISO - in the film days, this was known as ASA. It was the "speed" of the film and represented the size of the grain on the film. The digital cameras use the same concept. The higher the ISO number you use, the more grain (known in the digital realm as "noise") you will have in your image.
- White balance - in the film days, the equivalent of WB was the type of film you used. There were cool films and warm films. There were films that you could use to balance the green tint of flourescent lights, and films you could use to balance the red light in a late afternoon sun. If you didn't have the right kind of film in your camera for the conditions in which you were shooting, you could put a balancing filter on your lens.
All 4 of these elements must be in place for you to be able to capture the perfect exposure. Of course, today's cameras can do all of that for you. But, what if you have your camera set on full-automatic, but you want to be able to tell if it is capturing an exposure that matches what your eye sees?
Here's where the histogram will help you
The histogram, perhaps not available on many of the lower-end cameras, will show you if you captured a good exposure or not.
"A histogram is a graph of 256 vertical bars, one for each tonality in an 8-bit image. (For a 16-bit image it will show it reduced to 8-bit.) The left end represents black, and the right end, white.
The two ends are very important. In most cases you want them to tail off as shown here. You don't want them to "push up against the wall" unless the image has a lot of dark or light."
These quotes are from a great web page called 100 in 100, published by Adorama Imaging. You can read the whole article on histograms, plus view the menu of all the photography tips they have published so far. They will be publishing 1 tip each day for 100 days. So far, I think they're up to 62 as of today.
So, whether you're a pro, an aspiring pro, or just a hobbyist, these tips will be good information to have!
Hope this helps.
Thanks for reading.
Comments