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The “exposure” refers to the amount of light that reaches the image sensor. This amount of light is controlled by:

1. Aperture- The aperture determines how big the opening is for the light to pass thru. Aperture is expressed in f-numbers. (e.g f/8 or f/5.6)
2. Shutter Speed- The shutter speed determines how long the light will be allowed to reach the image sensor.

Hopefully you’ll be able to get just the right exposure for your images. If you use the automatic modes on your camera, it will usually do a pretty good job in selecting the aperture and shutter speed for your shot to be properly exposed. However, if you like to try your hand at the manual settings, you may see that your photo is overexposed or underexposed.

• Underexposed- Not enough light to expose the image properly. You’ll see that your image is too dark.
• Overexposed- Too much light was allowed to reach your image sensor. Often, the brightest areas will be burnt out and you won’t have detail in those areas.

If you are wondering how to expose an image, I would take my chances with underexposing the photo. Usually, an underexposure will allow you to use a photo editing program to pull some detail out.

Of course, to be really safe you’d want to use a technique called Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB). With AEB turned on, you can take one picture at normal exposure, one picture at an increased exposure and one at a decreased exposure. Most SLR cameras have a setting that makes it easy to set up AEB.