Light and Exposure

Explore Landscapes #43: So much has been written about exposure, metering, and camera metering modes, but much of it overcomplicates the subject (in my humble opinion).

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In Explore Landscapes #28, I outlined some essential photography terms I believe every photographer needs to understand. Exposure is one of the most overly complicated topics of all these various terms, abbreviations, and techniques. So much has been written about exposure, metering, and metering modes, but much of it overcomplicates the subject (in my humble opinion) for people starting off on their photographic journey.

In my workshops and mentoring sessions, I always strive to simplify photography to the essentials, i.e., what you need to know to make the progress you want with your photography.

In this post, I will try to simplify the concept of exposure down to its basics so that you have a strong foundation to build upon when you’re out shooting. Let’s start by defining what we mean by Exposure:

Exposure - is a term used to describe an image's overall lightness or darkness and how the amount of light reaching your camera’s sensor (or film) is measured. Most of you will likely be shooting with a DSLR or a Mirrorless camera, so the rest of the article will concentrate on digital images.