Should You Expose For Shadows Or Highlights?

By Brian Auer • August 20th, 2007
I guess the answer to this question can only come from the photographer taking the shot. Really, you should expose for whatever helps you capture your vision of the scene in front of you. I’ve seen great photos that were taken underexposed, overexposed, and perfectly exposed — but the photos were great because they captured the artist’s intent.

It’s generally accepted that digital photographers should expose for the highlights in order to keep things from getting blown out. It’s generally a good rule of thumb because pure white pixels tend to be more distracting than pure black pixels — but there are always exceptions. I’ve also heard once or twice that film photographers should expose for the shadows because the film can be processed in such a way that the highlights can be somewhat revived — I have no idea if that’s totally true, but maybe a film buff can set us straight in the comments.
Regardless, these are general rules and you’re probably better off knowing the story behind the root issues than taking advice from a rule of thumb. The intent of this article is only to provide information that can be used to make decisions about exposure in harsh lighting conditions. So here we go…

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