Source:www.brightsidetech.com

Ever wonder how a pro photographer always gets the shot?

Well for one thing they're pros; it's what they do for a living. But there's also a little trick they employ that many people aren't aware of.

Good pictures require 3 elements: interesting composition, proper focus and correct exposure.

Composition is a topic for a future discussion, and focus is now pretty much automatic, but again, that can be modified to achieve special effects, and will be addressed at another time.

Proper exposure is a highly complex matter, and is arrived at by exposing your digital camera's Sensor to the light that is reflected off the scene or subject, for just the right amount of time.

Although most cameras have various provisions available that allow you to modify the amount of light that strikes the sensor most people set the camera to "auto," and fire away. This results in a properly exposed picture most of the time but not always, due to a myriad of reasons.

Sometimes the area you want to highlight ends up being too light or too dark and while this can be corrected in a variety of ways the easiest thing to do is "bracket" your shots.

Bracketing involves the use of your camera's "multiple shot" feature which on film cameras is called the motor drive.

One press of the shutter results in 3 pictures of the same scene with one being darker, one lighter and one, in theory, being "correct."

Many times the lighter or darker picture will be more to your liking.
Here's how to do it:

I wish I could be more specific about how to access these features on your camera but these things vary greatly by manufacturer and model so you'll have to dig it out of your camera manual.

Locate the menu screen for "multiple exposures" and set it to "on." Depending on your camera there may be a choice of as many as 5 consecutive shots but 3 should be enough.

Next there will be a plus and minus scale that will allow you to vary the amount light that strikes the sensor. The usual set up allows for plus and minus 1 F stop, now referred to as E.V. or exposure value.

This will make a fairly subtle difference although in extreme conditions it can produce some startling effects. You may be surprised at how often you prefer one of the "wrong" exposures.

You can see from the example above that if the object of this picture was to emphasize the chair, and or the items in the window, the overexposed shot would be best. If you wanted to draw attention to the phone the underexposed picture would be your choice.

Practice this until you get the feel of it and then you'll be ready to try varying the plus and minus exposure to achieve whatever effect you desire.

One of the greatest appeals of digital photography is the ability to discard the bummers and you can even do that right on the spot if you don't have enough memory to keep everything and make your choices later.

For those of you who wish to delve into this in more detail check out this treatise.

Have fun, and if you use this technique and get a shot of which you're particularly proud, post it online somewhere, and put the link to it in the comments section.