Better Photos: Using the Histogram

Before reading these tutorials, I had only ever accidentally turned on the histogram.  Then, I would proceed to be irritated for weeks until I figured out how to turn the thing off again.  It has a purpose??  Awesome.  I know how to turn it on AND off?  Even better.

I tried out the histogram function on all manual with auto focus (steps, people, steps).  I adjusted the ISO to 800 and used the custom White Balance.  All photos had an f/stop of 5.6

 

Above is the over-exposed photo had 1/6. The histogram showed light all the way over to the right and even high-lighted my super-white spots on Ari's shirt.

This was purposely underexposed at 1/640 (very fast shutter speed).  I can just make out the cute little monkey onesie.  The histogram showed color all the way to the left.

Here's a picture with much better exposure at 1/30.  The focus is a bit off...I might have to take that leap to manual focus soon. The histogram showed a nice average with a peak of color right in the middle of the graph.  Yay! Good exposure!

I'm amazed at how much I'm learning about my camera, and I think my photos are really improving. I'm excited to keep testing out these new techniques.