The automatic exposure capability of modern cameras is a thing to be cherished. It usually produces excellent photos with nothing more than point-and-shoot. There are occasions, however, when it is best to override the automation to force a lower exposure. The built-in exposure automation assumes that the scene is reflecting 18% of the light falling upon it, and that nothing in the scene varies too much from the 18% average. There is trouble when one of those assumptions is wrong.

Patrick’s Point is on the north coast of California, roughly 75 miles south of the Oregon border. This is in a land of stunning scenery. Wild rhododendrons grow among redwoods, and the forests top cliffs above the ocean beaches. Patrick’s Point State Park features Agate Trail, with dramatic vistas as it winds down to the ocean. As I learned, the problem with photographing the scenes is that the forest is dark and the ocean is bright. It takes some Photoshop adjustment to produce a good picture.

We should be able to plug in the camera to a computer and use a software package designed to make the setup process easy, with help keys and online access to the manual and general reference materials. For example, setting up exposure bracketing on a Nikon D100 does not actually require a soldering iron, but it might be easier if it did. Instead, one might have the camera attached to a computer, access “bracketing” from a menu, and then be led through the process step by step.

When the sky is reasonably exposed, the foreground is reduced to featureless shadow. When the foreground is reasonably exposed, the sky blanks out in overexposure. The tricks is to take two frames that overlap very near the horizon. When a Photomerge™ panorama is made, both the sky and foreground detail are retained.

The QSA philosophy is to not worry about exposure and let the automatic camera do its thing. But like all great philosophical principles, there are exceptions. An automatic exposure of a sunset produces a wimpy wash-out image that cannot be fixed in Photoshop. The best strategy is to underexpose the image, then lighten it in Photoshop.

Few subjects are dominated by one color component, so autoexposure usually works well. For example, blue sky appears blue, but actually there is good deal of white mixed with the blue. Flowers are an exception. Flowers can have very pure colors. White flowers or pastel shades do not pose a problem. Usually it is red or red-orange flowers that create a problem. … The rule of thumb for subjects having pure colors is to force the exposure to one and a half stops below the automatic determination.

There was back lighting on the dried grass running up the hill, so it was time to feature the grass. I was only carrying a pocket camera on our early evening walk, so I took three frames to cover the hill up to the hilltop yuccas.