Most of us who have been around digital cameras for a while have come to love the histogram, which is basically a bar graph that charts the tonality of a photo. At a rudimentary level, it makes it easy to keep from under- or over-exposing photos. From a more nuanced perspective, it is possible to use the histogram to expose photos in a way to achieve a specific tonality for one or more parts of the scene, much like using the zone system. If you've never fully understood how to read a histogram, check out this video I put together:
For an even more detailed explanation, you can read my blog post that goes along with this video here: http://monkmanphoto.com/archives/4212.
Jerry, great tip! I tried it out and there certainly was a considerable difference between the camera’s “recommendation” and the histogram for exposure. I put a couple of images on your Flickr group. Looking forward to your future assignments.
Thanks Jim – glad you found this useful, and welcome to the group!