The Exposure Mistake I Still Make When Shooting Wildlife

Have you ever had a situation where a shot looks good, but when you check the photo, the exposure is off? Well, I’m sure we’ve often experienced it, and it’s one of those mistakes you only make once. Except… you don’t.

I had a similar situation recently. Nothing went wrong… except I forgot one thing. This is how our cameras work.

Getting the correct exposure is one of the most important aspects of photography. You have much greater latitude and creative potential in post with a correctly exposed photograph than you do with one that’s incorrectly exposed. 

In this podcast, I’ll walk you through a feature on your camera that you may not be aware of, or may have forgotten about.

Please like and subscribe, and next Friday I’ll be talking about when light tricks you!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week I'm going to talk about one of those mistakes that you only made once, except that you don't. And I was reminded of this recently when I was setting up a shot. I had everything the way I wanted it, composure was good, my subject was where I wanted my subject. I hit the shutter button, and what I'd got was a horribly underexposed subject. So, this isn't a beginner mistake, although beginners will make it. It's something that happens because every now and again we just forget about something really important. So that's what I'm going to talk about in this episode. So if you find this useful, please remember to like and subscribe. And uh let's get into it. So basically, this was um just a shoot I was doing with some other people. I luckily it was one where it was a bit more recreational than um uh actually photographing wildlife. But I have to confess, my I hadn't shot for a while, my mind was on other things, and um I guess key things to remember it was quite a bright evening, uh no cloud cover, but the sun was heading down, and I was in a sort of more urban y environment and was just trying to get to a shot of buildings and streets, and streetlights were beginning to come on. There were a little bit of them, but the sky was still pretty bright, and just sort of play around a little bit with leading lines and all those kind of good things that we do when we're composing photographs. And um I set up my shot, it all looked great in the viewfinder, took the shot, and then realized that I had made um a big mistake when I looked at it. Um, and it wasn't because something had gone wrong, it was simply because I forgot one important thing. And that's what I want to talk about in this podcast, because it's something that if you're a beginner, you may not even be aware that this function exists. And if you're not a beginner, if you're a bit more intermediate or more advanced, I'm sure you've made this mistake too. Because every now and again, I think most photographers I know anyway, uh, probably unless you're shooting every day and you you're really covering the bases all the time, uh, every now and again we make a stupid mistake or we forget something and we kind of kick ourselves. So, why did I have a horrible photograph? Why was my subject or one part of the frame very underexposed and making it first of all pretty much unusable against what I had in mind? And also the rest of the frame was fine. So the the sky was fine, nicely exposed, but the actual um urban scene that I was shooting was very underexposed and didn't work at all. So this comes back to how the camera can work for you, but if you forget what it's doing, it can occasionally work against you, and this is how the camera meters light. So most I'm gonna say most cameras, I'm pretty sure pretty much all of them work the same way, but I don't want to get people writing and complaining because I've missed one that doesn't do this. But cameras are programmed certainly by default to assess what is in the viewfinder or 90% of what's in the viewfinder, depending on the camera that you have, or whatever that number might be, and then make certain calculations about what it's seeing. And this applies to all camera automation as well. And this is why it's so important to understand what it's doing, because ultimately the camera can only look at a scene that you've presented it with, and then work on what it regards as normal. I'm hesitating to use that word normal, but I'll I'll use it for now because it's convenient. It will work on what is normal or what it expects to produce as a standard photograph, and will try and make what it's seeing conform to that definition of normal, which is something it's been programmed with. And this is why, as a creative photographer, we really need to understand what's going on. So, this is to do with exposure, and what cameras will do is expose the scene that it's presented, but we'll try to come up with an average across the whole scene. And if you have areas that are quite relatively dark and areas that are relatively light, that can really confuse it. So it's important to understand how your light metrium works, and if you're in this kind of a situation, and this is absolutely appropriate for wildlife because often uh we're in environments that have big variations between light and shade. So, for example, in a forest somewhere like that, we can have really bright sunlight outside, but the thing we're interested in is in the shade, which a lot of wildlife will be. So it's really important to understand this. And in the instance I'm talking about, because I had a very bright sky and a relatively dark area, and it was probably between a third and about a half of the frame, very roughly, the camera had decided to expose more for the bright sky than it had for the darker areas, which meant that the sky was correctly exposed. But the sort of urban scene, the street scene I was trying to capture on that occasion, was actually quite underexposed, it was quite dark. And you'll have experienced this if you tried to photograph somebody maybe walking through a door into a room where behind them it's bright sunlight, and they come through the door and you're trying to grab their photograph, and what you may well end up with is a silhouette, and that's because of exactly this thing. What the camera is doing, the way it works, it's trying to provide a kind of average exposure for the whole scene, and that's really hard to do when you have areas that are very bright and areas that are very dark, so you'll get somewhere in the middle, and possibly one part of the picture might be correctly exposed, and the rest of it won't be, or maybe none of it's correctly exposed. That's the other possibility. So the problem is that when we're looking through the viewfinder, uh things can look pretty good, and even on a mirrorless camera, things can look reasonably good. Um, but the actual image that we capture is is definitely off. So there's a slight chance I want to use some jargon here, but I guarantee it's not very much. And the jargon relates to a thing called auto exposure lock, and that is a little button, I hope. It's usually a little button somewhere on your camera body that usually has the letters A E L. It may have AEF and L, but it'll be something like that. On Canons, you will see it's also represented as like a little star next to uh one of the little buttons on the back. And that's what we call auto exposure lock. So, what on earth is that about? Well, basically what it does, it's there so that we can deliberately set up the exposure for the photograph based on part of the frame, so based on how well lit part of the frame is. And normally the way to set the exposure lock is to just fill the viewfinder as much as you can. This might be the darker area or the brighter area of the photograph, but the part that you really want to be exposed correctly, and you could also do this by zooming in if you have a telephoto lens. So, for example, if I'm photographing an animal, I want to capture its head and it's in um trees, but I might want to pull out and get more of um a kind of location shot. So I not only have I got the animal, but I've got the environment that it's in. I can still get the exposure correct for the animal by just zooming in so that the animal or that area fills the frame. So basically, that level of darkness or brightness fills the frame. And then when I've got that as I want it, I press down on that button, AE lock, and then I'll just hold that while I'm recomposing the image. So I might be pulling back out again so that I've got more bright areas in the frame, or just shifting the frame so that the composition is different, but there is more of a bright area there. And obviously, if it's the bright area I'm interested in, then do the reverse, set it up for the bright area, and then recompose to bring in the dark area, and then hit the shutter button to take the photograph. And what the camera will do in that instance, it will use the exposure setting that you've told it to keep when you were focused on the dark area. I'll stick with that um example because it's a bit easier to stick with one, but it will expose against the exposure setting it used for that area, even though with the new composition where you've got brighter areas in the image, that that exposure is wrong for the whole frame. It's correct for part of the frame, but not the whole frame. And this is where AE lock is really, really handy because there will definitely be occasions where you're in this situation, you've got areas that are quite bright, areas that are quite dark. What you're interested in will be in one of those areas, and you really want to make sure that you get the exposure as correct as you can. And remember, when I talk about capturing images, and when I particularly when I talk about post-process processing them afterwards, the thing that I always stress is to try and make sure you get your initial exposure as correct as you can, because once you've got that right, you can do a lot more in post. If you make a mess of the initial exposure, which is the mistake I made because I just completely forgot about using AE lock in that moment, my mind was elsewhere. Then I've got something that I might be able to pull something useful out of, but it becomes much harder. So that's what it is. And as I say, this is where it's important to understand at least part of how the camera operates. And there are times when you need to not use the settings that the camera thinks it needs, and that's because you know what you're focusing on, you know what your subject is, and you know what you want to have correctly exposed in the frame. And if you leave the camera to its own devices, there are definitely situations where the camera is going to get it wrong. So what I'm gonna talk about here is first of all, this is something to practice. Um, the very first thing is if you're not familiar with AE lock, find it on your camera. Um, I've told you how to find it. There will be a button somewhere that's marked um AEL or AEF-L, or it might be a little star if it's a canon. And then just try shooting a scene that has areas that are very bright and very dark. The difference doesn't have to be massive. The the bigger the difference, the clearer you'll see the difference in using AE lock and not using it. Um, but just set up that scene and then focus in either by shifting your point of view so that let's say the darker area fills most of the frame, or all of the frame ideally, or you just zoom in if you've got a telephoto lens so that everything in frame is now in that darker area. Press that AE lock button and then just recompose your image. That might be zooming out, it might be just shifting your view again so you've got this mix of light and dark. Then press the shutter button. Normally without releasing the AE lock button. Again, your camera might work slightly differently to this, but this is what I'm used to. And look at that photograph. And another thing you can do is just set the initial shot up without using AE lock just to see what the camera does left to its own devices. And I'm not a big one for spending a lot of time on the theory of how cameras work. Um, I prefer things to be a lot more practical, and also I'm not one for overloading people with a lot of technical stuff, but this is definitely something that is useful, and the chances are that you've already had this situation when you were taking a photograph. You thought it was set up well, and then you've got a silhouette or something horribly overexposed or horribly underexposed, and it's really hard to see what it is. So, this is a solution to that sort of situation. So, just to look at some situations where it's where you want to be thinking about whether or not AE lock will be useful for you, and that might be where, for example, a bird is in dark reeds, so you've got a kind of wetland environment with a uh wader bird, perhaps something like that, um, and it it starts flying, it takes off, it goes into a bright sky. And what may well happen there is particularly if your frame is mostly sky, you may well underexpose the bird. So if you can expose on the bird while it's still sat in the reeds, so that you're exposed on the darker um element, let's say, of the image. Uh, once it's in the air, yes, you're going to overexpose the background a little bit, but you'll have a decent exposure on the bird itself. And as I said, that's that's an important thing. So basically, if you've got a situation where your background is going to change or could well change, and it is different, the lighting between the original background and the new background is quite different. This is definitely a situation to start thinking about whether or not you should be using AE Lock to make sure that your subject stays correctly exposed regardless of what's happening in the background. Um, another one that I've kind of alluded to already is where you have a mammal. I had this with uh tigers actually in India, where we were in forest and um it was very bright sunlight uh above the trees, and there were lots of gaps in the trees. So we'd have these areas that were very well lit, very brightly lit, and then next to them areas that were actually in shadow because of the trees. And these would alternate. And of course, if you can imagine a tiger walking through that environment, it's and and I'm thinking of the eyes particularly because that's what I'm focused on when I'm taking the photographs. The eyes are alternatively going into bright light and then into shadow, into bright light, and into shadow. So I really want to be exposing for the eye when it's in bright light because that's what I want to shoot. I really want to get the eye lit up as much as I can. And if I've got the exposure wrong, I might overexpose the eye when it's in the um the bright sunshine, and it might be difficult for me to pull back the correct level of detail so that you really connect with the animal. Uh, we connect through the eyes, so that's really important. Um another situation might be where you recompose. So you have set up your frame, you've set it, you've set up your exposure for an animal. Um, you've decided to recompose. And again, I've already alluded to this in the way that you can set up for Alock anyway, by zooming in on an animal so that the the overall light values, if you like, across the whole frame are pretty even, so it's all in shadow or it's all bright. But if you're in that sort of situation and you then pull back again, as I've said, that's a situation where if you're starting to introduce brighter elements into the frame, the camera on its own will just recompose, it will change the exposure so that the overall frame, as far as it can work out, is correctly exposed. But but of course, that then means you have this situation where your bright sky might be great, but your animal suddenly is underexposed. So, this again is a situation where once you've got that animal exposure correct, just keep the AE lock button down as you pull back and recompose the uh the image. Um, so look, these are pretty um standard situations where AE lock is important. On the other hand, when can you forget about it? Well, if you're in a situation where the light is pretty even, so it might be on an overcast day, you've got even tones, there's no major contrast between light and dark areas in the frame. Your background is pretty steady in terms of light. So, although it might change, you know, you might be tracking an animal that's walking with a sort of sky in view and sky not in view, but if it's very cloudy, if it's very grey, the difference in light values may not be very much. So, in those sort of situations, the the exposure the camera will give you is probably okay. Um, what's important here is to check, obviously. So if you've got a situation where the animal is stationary or your subject is stationary or moving very slowly, you've got the opportunity to take a quick shot, check it out. This is obviously digital cameras, but take a quick shot, look at the uh exposure, make sure it's correct, and then shoot again. If you're in a situation where things can happen much faster, so for example, the bird taking off that I mentioned earlier, then it's really useful to I I would recommend maybe keeping using AE lock there anyway, if you're not sure. Um, but if if if there isn't much difference, then it won't make uh a huge amount of difference. So this is really um uh something I wanted to talk about because again, it's not one of those functions, it's one of those functions that some people either don't know they have or they it gets mentioned once, twice and then it disappears again. Um just to be aware when you're using AE lock, don't lock too early. Because if your light is constantly changing, let's say it's bright day, but you've got cloud kind of uh moving across the sky, so you've got a sort of variance in light. Try and leave your AE lock until you actually need to use it. So lock against the I guess the image or the combination of light and dark that you're going to be photographing, not how it was 10 seconds ago when it's changing quite regularly. So that's just um one important thing. And also remember that it's locked. So again, just make sure you understand how your AE lock works. Normally you should get um an indicator in the viewfinder or on the screen at the back to say it's on, but do be conscious of that if you're using it, because if if it is one where you just press it and it stays on until the shutter is pressed or it's switched manually switched off. Again, just check to see how it operates on your camera. You don't want to hold um the exposure over an extended period if that will give you an incorrect exposure because everything's changed. The animal's moved into bright light, or uh you re recompose the frame and that original exposure is no longer correct. So, I guess to um sum this up is that um auto exposure lock, a lock isn't something you should always use, but it is something you definitely want to be aware of. It's definitely one of those things that if you don't use often, you're likely to forget about, um, particularly if you don't do a lot of photography. Uh, you might be trying to then overexpose or underexpose or do other things um in your settings and completely forget about AE lock. Uh, that that's that's a really useful function that's there. So it's something you should reach for when the scene is about to change, but the subject isn't. That's really I think the best way to sum up when you should think about using um AE Lock. So remember, if if you haven't used it before, just find out how it's implemented on your camera and then go and practice. As I've suggested, go and um maybe set up a picture where you've got a mix of light and dark. Take uh just a picture of that frame with normal exposure, and then experiment with a lock on locking on the dark part, taking a picture, locking on the light part, taking a picture, and looking at the difference in exposure between those three images, and that will start to give you more of an insight into how this function works on your camera. And also look for what make sure you know where it is, but also look for um indicators to show that it's active. Uh so you're familiar with that. And um, and there you go. So I hope you found that useful. Now um I do put out a new podcast every Friday, and I'm gonna run a short series over the next few weeks. Uh might be interrupted by uh an interview, but I shall um let you know about that. And what we're gonna look at next time is when the light tricks you. So we'll keep the um the focus on light, uh, but we're gonna look at another situation uh that can also trip up the unwary or the forgetful, depending on which one you are. So I hope you found that useful. If I've earned it, please give me a like and a subscribe. And um I hope to see you on the next podcast. That will be on Friday. Bye for now.