Histograms and exposure

After reading an interesting article on how to read camera histograms from the Southampton Photography Group, I thought I'd add some thoughts on them too.

The histogram on the camera and on photoshop/premiere pro shows the exposure of the photograph or film and shows the level of light; for example, whether or not the picture is too light or too dark and the different levels between the spectrum.

A high peak in the histogram indicates the photograph is overexposed (i.e. a lot of light). The converse, no peak, indicates there is an underexposed section (little light).

If the histogram is skewed to the far left or far right, the camera settings might be wrong- if it's skewed far right, the picture will be overexposed and there will be less detail in the picture. The aperture of the camera may be letting in too much light, indicating too low an f number.

If the histogram is skewed too the far left, the picture is too dark. The ISO number might be too low (making the camera less sensitive to light) or the aperture might be too small (a high f number).

In the below picture, the levels histogram is skewed to the left slightly, indicating the picture is a little dark and underexposed.