GoingManual.com It's time to take control!    Home    Tutorials    Photography Forum  Photography Tutorial Introduction Part I – Gear The Camera  -  Focus  -  Resolution  -  MegaPixels Vs Print Size  -  Sharpening Semi auto settings  -  Aperture Priority (Av)  -  Shutter priority (Tv) Zoom and Focal Length  -  A Note About Sensor Size Other Camera Features  -  Viewfinders  -  Lens Hood  -  LCD screen  -  White Balance Extra Equipment  -  Tripod  -  Cable Release  -  Filter systems  -  Polarizer and ND filter  -  External Flash  -  Studio Lighting  -  Reflectors Part II – Capturing The Scene Your First Manual Photo  -  It's All About Exposure  -  The Light Meter  -  Exposure Explained  -  Controlling Exposure Creative Effects  -  Aperture and Depth Of Field  -  DOF Preview  -  Shutter speed Putting it all Together  -  ISO  -  Ap. & Shutter Relationship  -  Stop for a minute  -  So What?  -  The Bulb Setting Metering the Scene  -  18% of Everything Metering modes  -  Matrix  -  Average  -  Center weighted  -  Spot or semi-spot Taking Meter Readings  -  Expose for your subject  -  Sunsets and sunrises  -  Reflecting sun  -  Night Exposures  -  Moon  -  Green Foliage  -  Bright or White Scenes  -  Dark or Black Scenes Understanding Your Histogram  -  Flash Metering Composition Lead in The Viewer Eye  -  Point of Focus  -  Fill the frame  -  The Rule of Thirds  -  Moving Subjects  -  Print and frame Sizes Different Styles Learn by doing  -  Giving and Getting Critique  -  Portraits  -  Groups  -  Children  -  Shooting Outdoors  -  Silhouettes  -  Macro  -  Products  -  Landscapes  -  Sports and Action  -  Panning  -  Rear Sync Flash  -  Abstract  -  Long Exposures  -  Black and White A few Other Useful Things  -  Blown Out Skies  -  Neutral Density Filters  -  Polarizing Filters  -  Electronic noise You're Half Way There! Part III The Digital darkroom  -  Computer hardware  -  Card Reader  -  Printers  -  Mouse Post Processing  -  The Ethics of Altering  -  Choosing Your Program  -  Tutorials   Photoshop Tutorials   Photoshop Primer   Saving Your Image   Adding a Border   Using Levels   Using Curves   The S-Curve   Correcting White Balance   Improving Saturation   The Clone Tool   Correcting Lens Distortion   Blending Multiple Images   Black and White Conversion   Sepia Conversion   Reducing Noise   Cropping for Different Print Sizes   Sharpening   Working With RAW Files   The Gimp Tutorials   The Gimp Primer   Saving Your Image   Adding a Border   Using Levels   Using Curves   The S-Curve   Correcting White Balance   Improving Saturation   The Clone Tool   Correcting Lens Distortion   Blending Multiple Images   Black and White Conversion   Sepia Conversion   Reducing Noise   Cropping for Different Print Sizes   Sharpening   Working With RAW Files   << Metering Modes Understanding Your Histogram >> Taking Meter Readings Taking meter readings and setting your camera manually is key to leaving point and shoot or auto behind. Once you learn where to take the meter reading from, your pictures will be consistently correctly exposed. So where do you take the meter reading from? Different situations require a different method but there are a few things that remain the same. Expose For Your Subject You may find you're in high contrast situation that it's impossible to set the camera to correctly expose the whole scene. That's going to happen sometimes, so you have to do the best you can. Expose for your subject by moving in close or zooming so your subject fills the viewfinder. Don't worry if you loose focus but be careful not to change the amount of light on your subject by casting shadows. Take your reading by looking through the view finder. You should have already decided on the creative aspect of your shot and chosen either your aperture, for DOF, or Shutter speed to stop motion or allow blur. So with your creative setting in place you adjust the other setting to compensate for a correct exposure. Remember ISO can help you get into the range you would like. Now move back and re-compose your scene. Your light meter will probably show you are not correctly exposed, but you know better. You can take your shot knowing the important aspect, the subject, is correctly exposed and hopefully the rest isn't too far off. Tip: If there is a really high contrast difference you can choose an exposure that's not quite right for either end of the range and make adjustments in post processing later. Alternatively take several shots of the same scene at different shutter speeds and put the images back together in post processing, using only the correctly exposed areas from each. Don't change the aperture though as this will affect the DOF. Sunsets and Sunrises Meter just to the side of the sun. Strong backlighting will produce silhouettes of items in the foreground. Reflecting Sun Meter the reflection. This will work for water reflections and also where the sun is reflecting off the ground. Night Exposures Depends on how much light there is in the scene. Meter for the brightest area. You might have to experiment to see how much ambient light in the night sky there is. A slight glow can turn very bright in a long exposure. Moon Spot meter the moon and if you want capture its detail, use a fast shutter speed above you might have to go as high as 1/100th. The moon is as bright as a sunny day and is whizzing across the sky! The meter will try to overexpose if you include the night sky when metering due to the large area of black sky that will read under 18% resulting in a bright overexposed moon. Green Foliage Meter the foliage and increase the reading 2/3 stop. Bright or White Scenes Use a gray card or your palm as the white will fool your meter into underexposing. Alternatively, overexpose a little, according to the meter, and check your histogram comes close to the right hand side. Dark or Black Scenes Again use a gray card or underexpose, according to the meter, to make sure black stays black. << Metering Modes Understanding Your Histogram >>

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