44 essential digital camera tips and tricks

Digital camera tips: 24. Try bracketing

You may be able to adjust the exposure of an image in your editing software, but lightening an under-exposed shot will exaggerate any noise, while over-exposed highlights are impossible to recover. If you’re in any doubt, bracket your shots to be sure you’ve got one that’s correctly exposed – even if you choose to shoot raw files.

Digital camera tips: 25. Read the histogram

While your DSLR’s LCD screen will give you a guide to how well an image has been exposed, it shouldn’t be relied on. In bright light, images will appear darker than they actually are, while looking at the screen at night will make images appear bright, even if they’re actually slightly under-exposed.

The histogram is the only way to accurately assess an exposure on your camera, and the main thing to avoid at the time of shooting is clipping the highlights and, less serious, the shadows. If the histogram hits the right edge of the scale, consider reducing the exposure and shooting again.

Digital camera tips: 26. Expose for the highlights

It’s far easier to recover detail in areas of shadow than it is to disguise burnt-out highlights, so when the contrast is high, expose to preserve the highlight detail.