Metering was my lesson for this week. I found a remarkable difference in the exposure of each picture just by changing the metering mode on my camera. For those of you how may not know, but care here's the explanation (if you don't care, skip this part!): My camera has three different ways that it reads the light coming into the lens. The first picture shows matrix metering. The lens identifies different sections of light entering the whole photo and measures accordingly, kind of like averaging. Then there's center weighted metering. Here the camera puts a higher emphasis on the center portion surrounding your focal point but still uses the light entering the other parts of your shot, although to a lesser extent. Then the camera calculates how to expose your shot. The last kind of metering my camera has is spot metering. This one is fairly simple, the camera meters off the spot or focal point that you set your camera to use. My D40 only has 3 focal points but the more expensive cameras have way more and give you a greater flexibility as to what you want in focus. And yes, I am already drooling over one of those more expensive models!
I won't bore you with all nine shots I had to do, 3 each of front, side and back lighting. But I'll just show you the three pictures from front lighting so you get the idea.
A special thanks to Meghan. She is the one person willing to help me out with my photography without getting all cranky!! I don't know what I would without her!
All of these were shot at ISO200, f/7.1. As I changed the metering, I had to change the shutter speed to get a correct exposure (according to the camera's light meter) Even though the camera registered a correct meter reading each photo, they all looked different.
matrix metering-a very nice overall lit exposure.
Center Weighted metering-looks underexposed. My least favorite!
Spot metering, better than center weighted but not as nice as matrix.
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