Achieve the perfect exposure

Take a test shot

- Your Canon EOS offers three or four metering modes (see page 86). With the method that we're showing you here for getting the right exposure, it doesn't really matter which you use. However, the Evaluative mode is arguably the best all-round choice.

- Take a picture. This is primarily meant as a test shot to check you've set the right exposure. But remember to make it count ñ you never know when the scene will change.

- Look at the preview image as it flashes up on the back of the camera. This gives a good first indication of whether the exposure is near the mark. Exclude unnecessary bright areas

- It's high contrast that causes the greatest problems with exposure. A digital camera simply can't deal with the same range of brightness from light to dark that the human eye can cope with.

- Sometimes you can reduce contrast by cropping the brightest areas from the picture. Keep room lights out of shot if you're shooting indoors, and don't include too much sky if it isn't adding anything to the shot.

Get a closer look

- Press the play button on the back of the camera to get the shot you've just taken onscreen.The standard view just shows the picture, but if you use the Info button you can get an alternative view that shows a smaller image along with a graph-like display of the image brightness, called the histogram.

- Before looking at the histogram, look at the thumbnail of the image itself and check if any areas of it are flashing. This is the clipping warning, showing areas of the image that are too bright for the camera sensor to cope with. This indicates overexposure, and these areas will appear white in the resulting image.