Our eyes can see about 24 stops of dynamic range while our cameras see roughly ten, give or take a couple depending on your camera. Prints have roughly six depending on what type they are.

They think our eyes can see roughly twelve stops of dynamic range before our brain starts composting areas of our sight together. So roughly what we see is what the camera sees, until we let our eyes start adjusting and take a longer time to look.

For me knowing where these edges of dynamic range are and intentionally using them to my advantage is an exciting creative tool.

A totally different way of looking at this is playing intentionally with the whites and blacks with composition and with exposure. I use exposure compensation to control this. Others use manual exposure.

So this week’s exercise is to create resolved compositions intentionally in each of the three following conditions.

1. Normal exposure - what you would deem as normal

2. Over exposed - with lots of intentional white

3. Under exposed with lots of intentional black

To learn the most from this exercise try and aim for one photograph of each with the same subject. One under, one over and one normal. You will need to work your composition with each of the variances in exposure.

This exercise will help you with understanding that exposure is a creative choice, that correct isn’t necessarily the best, and hopefully give you more control over your camera. It will also force you to compose some high key and low key on the same subjects.

Photographs and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2020