There are times in life you have to make decisions. The technology is not capable of 100% autonomous operation. She needs us to guide her, to give her some clue.
Light metering in SLR cameras it’s one of those settings you have to decide for yourself. Your camera, no matter how efficient it is in automatic mode, cannot guess the most suitable light metering mode. You have to decide for yourself.
In today’s article I would like to help you make this decision. I’m not going to take it for you. What I will try to help you with is understand the meaning of light measurement in a simple waygiving you some hints about when to use each mode.
Here we go.
What are light metering modes in digital photography?
In order not to produce overexposed photos (with too much light) or underexposed photos (too dark), the camera tries to “dose” the amount of light that enters. If it sees that the landscape, person or object portrayed is dark, the camera tries to compensate for it by letting in a little more light. If, on the other hand, it realizes that it is a very sunny day, or that there is too much light in the scene, then it tries to restrict the amount of light that passes into it, thus guaranteeing correct lighting levels.
do you follow me Well, the light metering is an indication that we give to the camera so that it distinguishes which part of the frame should be taken as a reference to regulate the exposure (the capture of light). If some parts of the frame were too light and others too dark, the camera would go haywire. Someone has to tell you: «Hey, forget about this part x of the frame, focus on this other one, which is the one that really interests me to photograph with correct exposure levels, if the rest is overexposed or underexposed, I care less».
Types of light measurement
Mainly there are 3 types.
Spot Measurement: Here the camera measures the light from a specific point of the frame (usually the center, although in some cameras you can indicate it) and regulates the amount of light it needs to capture based on that measurement. Whether the rest of the frame is darker or brighter, the camera doesn’t care. What interests to expose correctly is a concrete and “punctual” area. Hence the name.
Do you want an example?
If you have a scene in which most of the frame is dark and only a very small part is illuminated, you should use the Spot metering mode and tell the camera where that character is that you are interested in lighting well.
Center Weighted Metering: Almost similar to the point measurement, except for the fact that it takes the indicated point as a reference, giving it a lot of importance in the calculation, but it also takes into account the area around that point, albeit giving it much less importance.
Example:
Center-weighted metering was used in this example. What had to be correctly exposed were the candles together with the two main characters. However, it was possible to see more characters as well as the rest of the scene thanks to the fact that the camera also took into account the rest of the frame.
Matrix Measurement:
This is the easiest mode to use, and generally the one used most frequently. Here you simply tell the camera: “Look, calculate the different light levels of the entire frame, take an average, and take the photo with that average light”.
Here normally most of the elements of the frame tend to be well exposed since the camera does not go to either of the two extremes, but applies a “medium” exposure.
For what situations is it best to use matrix metering?
Any photo in which there is no element that is too bright or too dark.
Example:
Any photo where we are interested in balancing light between dark and light areas would be ideal for matrix light metering mode.
How do you see it, easy no..?