METERING

Metering for light and finding the correct exposure is one of the most important facets of photography. No matter how well you compose the picture, how interesting your subject matter is, it all means nothing if you can’t see the end result. There is only ONE correct subject exposure, everything else will either be under or over exposed.

Cameras these days all have a light meter built into it, which is how it knows what exposure settings are needed. It can be tricked quite easily though. Shooting in the snow or at the beach are two examples of this. Because the camera ‘sees’ all this brightness, it automatically closes down the aperture and quickens the shutter speed, resulting in an underexposed image where the snow looks dirty and grey. This is where you as the photographer, have to step in and correct it manually.

There are usually four metering modes that you can select on your camera. Evaluative (generally recommended) is an all-round mode suited for portraits and general scenes. Partial is effective when the background is much brighter than the subject due to backlighting. Spot is for a specific part of the subject or scene. Centre-weighted average is weighted at the centre and then averaged for the entire scene.

Handheld meters are also handy as you can take a reflected reading (the light reflecting off the subject) and an ambient reading (the light falling onto the subject). Sometimes the light reflecting off a dark/light subject for example will render the exposure incorrectly, which is where the ambient light reading can be useful.

It is a tricky business at times but with practise and understanding there will be more hit than miss in your photographic outcomes.