When you are in manual mode, you can increase or decrease your exposure whenever you’d like. For the other modes, most cameras have what is called exposure compensation, which will allow you to decide if you want the exposure to be over or under what your camera believes is the perfect exposure. This allows you to pick a style and shoot more creative shots in terms of exposure. What if you are shooting in auto and your photos are always coming out too dark or too bright? Or maybe they’re perfectly balanced and you want it to be a bit brighter or darker? That is why exposure compensation comes into play. You can find the exposure compensation option at a little button at your camera with a plus or minus on it. You can press that button to turn the dial to increase or decrease the setting. Some cameras have a separate dial for it altogether. Adjusting this will make your photos brighter or darker.

How does it change the exposure?

The exposure compensation changes the exposure with the aperture, the shutter speed or the ISO, depending on what automatic mode you are on in your camera. In aperture priority mode the exposure compensation changes the shutter speed, in shutter priority, it changes the aperture, and in program mode, it changes the shutter speed. In manual mode it does not make sense to use exposure compensation because you can choose any of your settings to adjust your exposure.

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