TMcD Loc: Minneapolis, MN

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

I got precisely what I expected. Though I haven’t tried it, I believe that in any auto mode the resulting exposure will be over- or under-exposed by whatever amount of exposure compensation is set.

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

With an in-camera meter that doesn’t display the amount of over/underexposure, it may not be useless. That said, my little test yesterday was the first time I tried exposure compensation. I do have two cameras that require it for certain focusing screens, but only for matrix metering, which I never use either.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

The ISO is simply a signal amplification to begin with, so the exposure comp simply increments or decrements that amplification.

Winslowe

If it did, you could not have been in full manual!

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

What does the EXIF data show that the camera actually did? Take a shot in manual and then a couple with compensation over and under of the same scene, maybe even on a tripod to ensure same-same.

DaveC Loc: Illinois

Right. I was in full manual and it didn't change any settings, just showed me how far off I was from the exposure I had dialed in.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Your are giving a thumbs up to an inaccurate statement. Newer Canon bodies.support EC in Manual mode with auto ISO. It gives you the benefits of auto ISO with the ability to tailor it to a specific ISO value and is faster and more flexible than explicitly setting the value via the ISO function.

PGHphoto Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I use compensation so that I always slightly underexpose the shot. It comes from my film days of expose for the highlights - develop for the shadows. I feel that when shooting raw it almost extends the exposure latitude since blown highlights are impossible to recover but shadows almost always contain detail that can be brought out in post. When I change the exposure comp and am using in-camera metering, the raw or jpg file definitely reflects the change i dialed in.

I think what the article meant was simply that the compensation in manual mode relies on using the in-camera metering as your indicator for correct exposure. Adding compensation shifts the meter indicator in the viewfinder. When you adjust the camera settings with compensation on, the meter says correct exposure but you are actually under or over exposing the scene by the amount of compensation you dialed in. If you use an external meter to manually set your camera's shutter speed, aperture and ISO,(thereby ignoring the camera's meter) adding in-camera compensation you will not show any difference in the photos.

Think of the metering indicator like the face of a clock with the hands pointing straight up where 12 is. Assume this is the correct location for the hands according to your camera's meter (correct exposure). If you rotate the entire clock to the right so the 11 is now at the top of the clock face (adding exposure compensation) the hands now point to the right of straight up. To make the hands look 'correct' again, you have to move the hands to the left (ie change the aperture and or shutter speed) so they point straight up again. The camera says you are now correct but the hands relative to the clock face point to the 11. Camera says exposure is correct because the hands point straight up but the photo says its really at 11 and therefore less exposed.

Hope that adds some usable information...

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Exposure Compensation is a handy feature that allows the photographer to override auto exposure modes of a camera in order to correct for unusual lighting or subject tonalities, or to achieve some special effect such as high key or low key look in their images.

There is no Exposure Compensation in fully Manual exposure mode. (Note: Manual + Auto ISO is not manual exposure... it is another form of auto exposure.)

When you're using any of the auto exposure modes.... Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program or Manual + Auto ISO... the camera's metering system is going to want to make an exposure that will render "average gray". The camera has no idea what it's being pointed at... if it's a scene with a mix of tonalities that add up to "average gray"... or if it's a subject who's tonality actually is "average"... then no E.C. will be needed. However, if you are photographing a bride in a white gown in a snow storm, with any of the auto exposure modes the camera is going to try to underexpose significantly.... so some plus (+) E.C. is gong to be needed. OTOH, if you are shooting a black bear in a coal mine, the camera's metering and AE system will want to overexpose a lot... so some minus (-) E.C. will be necessary to render the subject accurately.

However, when you setting exposure fully manually, you instead adjust ISO, shutter speed and aperture to arrive at a "correct" exposure. Another way of looking at this... when using Manual mode, any Exposure Compensation being done is "in your head", not in your camera. The meter readout display will reflect the skewed settings you're using, but it's not E.C.

Instead of E.C., when in Manual mode you can skew your exposure settings as you see fit, for the same reasons to correct for unusual lighting/subject tonality that's effecting the camera's metering accuracy or to get some special exposure effect in your images.

Many cameras use the same metering scale to read out both Manual exposure and Exposure Compensation settings. This is probably the reason for the confusion, that E.C. is a feature that is somehow applied to Manual exposure mode too. It is not.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

There are two confusing things going on :

1. "Fully manual mode" - you set the SS, aperture AND ISO - with NO exposure comp enabled.

2. "Manual mode" W/ auto ISO enabled - you set the SS, aperture AND exposure comp is enabled - the ISO "floats" to accommodate the exp.comp.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Linda, this is the first time I hear of exposure compensation set in manual mode. We all know that this has not been possible since till now EC has worked with auto modes only.
Traditionally EC in manual mode has been part of the control we have when using that mode. We simply have open or closed the lens to allow for more or less light and when it has been necessary to keep the aperture we have gone to the shutter speeds.
Not that I am interested but I am curious about setting EC in manual mode using the EC button.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

As I see it, the bottom line, Linda, is:

If you shoot in manual and are wishing somehow to increase exposure by one and 1/3 stop (or decrease by 2/3 stop...or whatever....) why not just manually DO IT by a thoughtful decision of which to use: aperture, shutter duration, or ISO... and then apply that change?

That's the beauty of Manual.

On the other hand, if you really would rather leave it to the camera, switch to Auto or, for a tad more imagined authoritarianism, to Program ...or Aperture priority...or shutter priority.. and let the camera decide how to do it?

But if you are shooting in manual, d...n it, take the responsibility of shooting in Manual!

Just one guy's opinion.

Dave

emmons267 Loc: Arizona, Valley of the Sun

Excellent explanation. Thank you.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

This is probably exactly the opposite of what you should be doing with digital!

Back in the days of film, with slides (transparencies) we had to be careful not to blow out highlights. A highlight in a slide is a complete lack of any image info... completely clear film that allows all light to pass through.

With negative films (B&W or color) it's just the opposite. Highlights on film are a great deal of info, completely blocking any light from passing through the film base.

Now with digital, it's more like negative film... there's lots of data and highlights are far more recoverable than most people realize. In other words, digital highlights are not very likely to be "blown out". I see and hear people trying to prevent their histograms from touching the righthand side of the display.... which is a mistake. In fact, any pure white within an image should push the histrogram strongly to the right.

With digital, underexposure causes loss of detail and additional noise in shadows.

The problem is that many people judge their images based upon uncalibrated computer monitors. There are two problems with this. The first is that most computer monitors straight from the box are way, way too bright. They cause users to make their images way too dark (hence too dark prints, or images online that appear too dark to other users). Another problem is that all computer monitors clip both highlights and shadows... none can render "true black" or "pure white". If you make a print from an image with a high quality printer and smooth matte paper you will always find a lot more detail in both the highlights and shadows, than you realized was there looking at the image on your computer monitor. In other words, the dynamic range of the camera is actually greater than what your computer monitor can display. If the monitor isn't calibrated properly, this is further exacerbated... the uncalibrated and overly bright monitor is clipping highlights even more than a calibrated one would.

All this leads one to do just the opposite of what one really should be doing... setting exposure to protect shadows as much or more than highlights. "Expose to the Right" is a broad generalization and not as good as precise exposure control... but it works, on the whole, because it skews slight over-exposure and helps prevent underexposure.

If you have a properly calibrated computer monitor, you can pretty easily tell for yourself what's best. Go shoot 1000 RAW images with Exposure Compensation zeroed out or, if shooting purely manually, always "centering the needle". Now post-process those images in whatever software you use and make note of what exposure adjustments you do to each of them. I bet you'll find the vast majority you are having to "push up" exposure (which will also amplify noise). On average over a large number of images, it's almost always better to have some slight over-exposure. With very high ISO images, in particular, under-exposure needs to be avoided at all costs! In fact, I was advised to try slight over-exposure and "pulling" images back down 1/3 to 2/3 stop in post-processing, to get the "cleanest" high ISO images. That worked well, without any noticeable loss of highlight detail.

But it can vary depending upon brand and even camera model within any given brand. I use different settings (less ETTR) with my current Canon 7D Mark II cameras, than I did with the original 7Ds that I used for about five years. Today I set no ETTR for normal lighting... I only dial in E.C. for unusual subject tonality or strong back lighting, for example. With my original 7D I used +1/3 stop ETTR most of the time.... +2/3 stop for high ISO and in strong, midday sunlight. But I might change that... because I'm finding after about a year and some 50,000 or 60,000 images with them that the Mark II camera images also tend to need a bit of push in post-processing... I just don't think it's as much as was needed with the earlier model. This is probably due to different metering systems used in the models.

There also are differences depending upon the metering method used... Evaluative/Matrix metering is a little different from Center-Weighted. Partial or Spot metering can be more accurate, but requires greater and more careful user tweaking via the manual settings or Exposure Compensation. Actually, a separate, handheld incident meter can be the most accurate means of determining exposure settings. This type of meter measures light falling onto a subject, instead of what's being reflected off it. For this reason, the incident meter isn't influence by subject tonalities (so no E.C. is needed).

Because of the brand to brand and model to model differences you really should observe your own images and judge for yourself... And you really need a calibrated monitor to do so. But, if you take the trouble to test it yourself, I bet you find that the last thing you want to do is deliberately and consistently under-expose... the way you're doing now!