Basics of Exposure

One advantage of using a SLR camera is the ability to control how the camera deals with scenes that have a wide contrast in lighting. Both of these pictures were taken at the same time. The top photo was taken using my standard camera settings of -2/3 of an f-stop (the Nikon sensors tend to overexpose). As you can see, the foreground is basically so dark you can't see any detail.

Nikon D40, Nikon 18-200mm, 1/320 sec, f/9, ISO 400, exposure -0.7 f-stop

By adjusting the settings to +1 f-stop, the camera overexposed the scene, the foreground details are visible without losing too much detail in the well lit area of the scene. If you want to be able to control the exposure of your shots, a SLR camera is a must.

Nikon D40, Nikon 18-200mm, 1/60 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400, exposure +1.0 f-stop