Photgraphy 101: Week 3

This week we talked about metering modes. Metering is basically how your camera determines the shutter speed and aperture based on the lighting conditions and ISO setting. My camera has three settings: matrix mode, center-weighted mode, and spot mode. Matrix mode determines the sensitivity by averaging all of the light values present in the viewfinder, center-weighted averages the values in the center and along the edges, and spot metering focuses on the value in the center of the viewfinder.

We also learned that all of these can be overwritten by using a graycard. The graycard is simply a piece of paper with an 18% gray fill on it. If you point your camera at the card and use the light settings it gives you before taking your picture, it's sure to be properly exposed.

Here are a few pictures that I took of Tasha in the three different metering modes (without using a graycard). It looks like the center-weighted mode is the most accurate, as the other two are a little underexposed.