4. Getting the Right Exposure

When you bought your Nikon D5100, you probably thought your days of worrying about getting the correct exposure were over. To paraphrase an old Kodak tagline dating back to the 19th Century—the goal is, “you press the button, and the camera does the rest.” For the most part, that’s a realistic objective. The D5100 is one of the smartest cameras available when it comes to calculating the right exposure for most situations. You can generally choose one of the Scene modes, or press the mode button and spin the command dial to switch to Program (P), Aperture-priority (A), or Shutter-priority (S) and shoot away.

For example, when you shoot with the main light source behind the subject, you end up with backlighting, which can result in an overexposed background and/or an underexposed subject. The Nikon D5100 recognizes backlit situations nicely, and can properly base exposure on the main subject, producing a decent photo. Features like Active D-Lighting (discussed in Chapter 8) can fine-tune exposure as you take photos, to preserve detail in the highlights and shadows.