Works every time. Works with all cameras.
If you’re looking for a shortcut to success, sorry to burst your bubble.
If you’re wondering why experience counts when you’re holding one of the most sophisticated cameras ever made – keep reading.
I am going to start the explanation at the beginning of time.
Back in the film days…
…getting correct exposure was easy. You just lined up the little needle in the middle and bang – perfect exposure.
Of course, the real secret was behind the scenes in the lab. Most modern films have an exposure latitude of several stops – so as long as your initial exposure was in the ballpark, your prints would come back from the lab perfectly fine.
Then along came digital and screwed everything up – while at the same time giving unsuspecting new photographers the illusion that they could easily “fix” poor exposures.
In reality, with nearly all digital cameras, you have to nail your exposure. Using RAW with a modern professional level DSLR’s helps increase the odds – but if your initial exposure is off by more than a stop – you’re still in the quality danger zone.
This is very counter intuitive for new photographers to understand. Everyone knows that Photoshop, Lightroom and every mobile phone app ever made has an exposure slider to “fix” poorly exposed images.
Unfortunately, most of the time this means brightening underexposed photos – and if you were shooting in (P)rofessional mode to begin with, chances are brightening that photo is going to cost you image quality.
If you’ve bothered to read this far, you should know exactly what I mean.