Exposure: Basically, this is the brightness of your picture. If it’s over-exposed then it’ll look too bright and some of the detail will be lost to a wishy-washy brightness. If it’s underexposed it’ll look too dark, and again there will be areas that are too dark and it’ll be hard to see the detail. See how easy this is!

Exposure more or less equals the brightness, and when you have got it right the picture will show as much detail as it is possible to see. (Not too dark and not too light).

So what, many people will tell you that the best place for the compact camera is auto, where you only have to think about composing the picture; the camera is so good at getting this right itself, that I don’t need to think about it! Wrong. Every camera I own or use, two high end compacts and a decent midrange Digital SLR have the same predictable habit; they get it rightish most of the time, but they often get it wrong. Think about it, when you check the screen on your compact, can you honestly say that it hasn’t made the picture too bright or too dark?

There are some situations that cameras really struggle with. Snowscenes, or bright skies with foreground in shadow, portraits with bright areas like skies behind the subject. The camera tends to attempt to get most of the scene the right brightness, but if the scene has for example a face, with a bright background, the face may be too dark since it’s a small part of the overall scene; you see the camera may not know that the face is the most important face in the world to you, and slightly too dark (underexposed), all its microchip cares about is that most of the scene is about right..not good enough for an important picture.

Above: The first snap is out of focus, but more importantly for us here, too bright (overexposed). A quick decrease on my exposure compensation control and my friend’s faces are more detailed and just the right brightness.

To be fair, cameras use “intelligent” scene recognition to try to guess when a person is backlit, and therefore to allow the face to be correctly exposed, and allowing the background which doesn’t matter quite as much to you, to be a little too bright. In my experience, the automation only works sometimes, but that might get better in the future.

Above: Here the camera has exposed for the sky and my friend’s face is darker than I would like. Increasing the exposure in software improves the brightness and detail of his face.

So you’ve looked at the screen, and aunt Madge looks too dark (but in perfect focus, well done) while the vast Arizona skies and setting sun behind her are perfect. The camera got it wrong again. Most people will shrug and say, “it’s only a snap, I can make her out, it’ll do”. But you care! Remember my promise, you don’t need to be all techie to take control and have a picture that aunt Madge will put in a frame and treasure for ever. So what do you do?

Most decent cameras, have a little control called “Exposure Compensation”

The symbol will usually look like this if it’s on a camera button. (Check your manual).

Sometimes (as above) it is a button on the camera, that you can press after taking a picture, make a quick adjustment and take the picture again.

Just as often in a compact camera (below), it is in a “quick to reach” menu, so that you call it up to make the adjustment after a picture that you think could be better.

Note: Canon use a different symbol in their menu. It doesn’t matter, just find what your compact uses.

These will pretty much always bring a little line onto your screen with a (+) at one end and a (-) at the other, sometimes with a zero at the centre. Once you call them up, you simply use your camera’s controller to move it up if you need to make the next picture brighter or down to make the next one darker. That’s it, it’s that easy; find your exposure compensation control, and now get into the habit of checking the picture after you have taken it to see if it’s too bright or too dark where you need it to be just right, adjust the control and take the picture again if you need to.

Note: I’m assuming you can see the screen, If its too bright/sunny you might need to cover it to check. (I’ll share a better way to check this in a later lesson, but that’s enough for now).

Summary: So now you can use centre selected manual focus before “recomposing” the picture while half pressing the shutter. You can also adjust the picture brightness and take the picture again if you’re not fully happy with it.

Note: Not all cameras have all functions, exposure compensation and user controlled focussing would be normal in all but the very cheapest compacts. As before, if you are still confused, check with your local camera shop, and maybe buy something from them!

Next lesson: I’ll show you another way to achieve the same thing with your compact if it has selectable metering modes.

Compact cameras are generally fairly powerful tools these days. Like all tools, getting the best out of them requires you to know how to use them. I’m not talking about deep photographic expertise here, but just a little knowledge that will go a long way to improving your pictures.

I had a great conversation with a couple of my dearest friends this summer when they were getting some pictures on their Fuji compact on an alpine holiday that were too bright or dark or perhaps in poor focus. Over a beer in an alpine hut I showed them the two simple things that they needed to do to get better pictures. (I tried not to bore them too much). They tell me that they have made extensive use of these two simple things since then and that they have been enjoying their photography all the more since; they feel more in control of their compact, they are getting fewer disappointing pictures, and they have avoided learning anything more about cameras than they need to know.

In this entry, I want to discuss the first and most important technique for taking control of your compact:

Controlling the focus.

In the picture above, I’m not sharp but the background is. The camera has guessed that the centre of the scene is the priority and focussed on the boats and mountains.

Here is a picture a moment later to show me sharp for comparison, as my wife intended.

Have you ever photographed someone you really wanted a picture of, and found that they weren’t as sharp as the tree behind them, or a different person in the scene? This is the most common problem with a compact camera on “auto” mode. It tries to intelligently guess what part of the scene you would like to be pin sharp, and sets the focus on that point. Unfortunately, even the most expensive compact camera isn’t as intelligent as you are, and simply can’t always guess what your subject is. As long as you let the camera decide for you then some of your pictures will disappoint you by having your subject out of focus.

So what do you do about it? These days there are three focus modes built into most compacts:

1.  Auto or intelligent focus: This is the one that causes the problems, it decides, and it does get it wrong a lot. If you really don’t care about nailing the person or item you might not get to photograph again, then leave it in this mode and take your chances.

2.  Manual or centre Focus: In a compact this means that the “auto or intelligent” focus is switched off. This will almost always give you a simple focus point in the centre of your screen. When you press the shutter button half way, the camera will focus on that centre point while you hold the shutter half way down.

3.  Face detection: This is the latest and very useful thing, but it shouldn’t be left on all the time unless you only ever take party or people pictures. It automatically detects faces in the scene and tries to ensure that they are all in focus. That may sound great, but there are times when you only want your husband’s face in focus, and the other people at the party, more out of focus. You can do that so much better without “face recognition”.

So my simple rule for you is this:

To control your focus and get the subject sharp EVERY TIME without your camera messing up for you, choose the second option: manual focus or “intelligent” or “face recognition” off. The technique now is simple. Place the subject at the centre of the scene, half press the shutter button until the camera indicates that it has locked focus, now KEEP HOLDING THE BUTTON HALFWAY DOWN while you move the camera a little to compose the scene the way you want it. (You might not want the subject in the centre.) When you are ready, assuming the subject has stayed still, press the whole way and take the picture. This is called “focus and recompose”.

In the above picture, I have focussed over the moggie’s eye, I am holding the shutter half-pressed, and I can slightly move the camera until the cat is where I want it in the frame.

If you focus and recompose, you will always choose what is in focus, and as long as you keep your finger halfway pressing the button, your chosen subject will stay in focus. Practice this with your compact and you will get the right part if the picture sharp every time.

Note: Every camera has a different menu, and may use different wording for the focus settings. If you can’t figure them yourself, ask a photographer friend to look for you, or take it into your local camera shop and ask for their help with it.

Next lesson: We’ll look at the second simple technique, controlling exposure.