Is this an error?

Month after month, SP brings out interesting issues. The vast topics covered in Learnings are very informative. I wish the magazine maintains this standard! Thank you for the amazing work the team puts in. I have noticed an anomaly in the article though. Kindly correct me if I am wrong. Under Exposure Compensation: On Page 61, sentence starting with “However, you will encounter situations that are high key...” where you define high key and low key scenes and in 3rd para 3rd sentence starting with “Normally you give the former for high key...” says giving + compensation for high key scenes and - compensation for low key scenes. I think it should be other way round i.e. you give more exposure (+ compensation) for low key (very dark) scenes to make the image lighter and less exposure (- compensation) for high key (very light) scenes to make the image darker. Keep up the good work! Bhavin Ashar, Mumbai Sadly, you are mistaken. Let us understand how exposure meters work. Exposure meters provide ‘correct’ exposure if and only if the subject reflects about 18% of light falling on it. But white (or light) subjects reflect more than 18% of light. This causes the meter to ‘ think’ that too much light is coming in and hence I must reduce the exposure. This makes the recorded image to go darker ( underexposes the image). Hence, to compensate, we need to add light ( use + compensation). Conversely, black (or dark) subjects reflect less then 18% of light. This makes the exposure meter to ‘think’ that too little light is coming in and hence I must increase the exposure. This makes the recorded image to turn brighter (overexposes the image). In order to compensate, we need to reduce light (use - compensation). The above assumes that the photographer wants his whites as white and blacks as black. The advice that dark subjects need more light and light subjects need less light is incorrect. Important Note: When using a digital camera, underexposure causes ‘noise’. Hence when I photograph dark subjects that cover the frame, I do not apply the general minus compensation. This means that the dark areas turn grey (indicating overexposure) but then I adjust the tonalities in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). The shadow areas collect more data, which translates into lesser noise. Do keep in mind that this method works only with RAW.