Hi all. Just learned a tip and thought I would share. I have taken some classes and done alot of practicing and just learned today that cameras have an internal light metering system. I am not really good at explaining things but it pretty much will tell you if your exposure for that picture is going to come out correctly in your camera. I am starting to shoot in manual and apparently when you set your aperture or shutter speed , and then your iso, the meter will sit on where your picture will be exposed. If its in the middle supposedly it will be exposed correctly. Well I guess you kinda have to tweak it to your specific camera as some overexpose or underexpose a bit but I had no idea that I could look through my viewfinder and see if I needed to tweak any of my settings to get the exposure correct. Hmmmmm....learning all kinds of stuff! Hope this helps some other people that had no clue :)
Something else you can do in Program, Shutter or Aperture mode is to adjust the exposure so you can force the camera to take the picture slightly over or under exposed without needing to be in full manual.
thing is, my camera and I never seem to agree ;)
remember, the camera wants to make daylight, so consider that when deciding if you *want* daylight-looking photos, or instead low key or high key shots.
a rule of thumb: if you don't control the light from moment to moment, you pretty much want to meter in the camera: that's its strength. think light flares, and windy tree cover.
on the other hand, if you're looking for a certain 'mood', like a drinking glass shot with the background falling to black, go manual, you'll feel like an expert, and digital/RAW allows you a lot of leeway to experiment.
It's great to discover these things Chris. I found this exact thing out not so long ago and now the mystery of manual shooting is becoming less mysterious! And I'm loving it! And then just recently I discovered what @cameronknowlton was talking about. I remember reading something that a lovely girl on here wrote early in the year in a discussion on what settings you commonly use. She said I always use manual because I like to control the light. I thought long and hard about that comment for months. What did she mean? And even when I starting using manual I still didn't get it. Then a few weeks ago I was shooting something, lining up the exposure and decided that the shot I was getting wasn't how I envisaged it, so I underexposed it a couple of stops, and suddenly there was the shot I wanted. It was my ah-ha moment and I finally got it - I was controlling the light! So anyway, this is me being very long-winded, and maybe rather dim-witted in retrospect, but we all learn eventually and with the wonderful support and knowledge of lovely people on here. Good on you for getting ahead :-)
I guess if you recently switch to manual settings you just discover this. film camera SLRs have the same system usually. Still with digital I tend to ignore the meter and shoot and see, starting with what I think it right and then adjusting it to the picture shown. I have often found myself shooting what is right for me then noticing that the meter is well off the scale.
@mallocarray Thanks for the tip Joshua! @agima Thanks Brendan! @cameronknowlton Thanks Cameron. All great points!
@ @ayearinthelifeof Thank you for the tip! @tulipgirl Great info Alicia! I look forward to playing around with this new information!! @chewyteeth I agree, I am excited to play around and see how close the meter is to what I see or like in my photos! Had no idea this tool was right there the whole time :)
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
remember, the camera wants to make daylight, so consider that when deciding if you *want* daylight-looking photos, or instead low key or high key shots.
a rule of thumb: if you don't control the light from moment to moment, you pretty much want to meter in the camera: that's its strength. think light flares, and windy tree cover.
on the other hand, if you're looking for a certain 'mood', like a drinking glass shot with the background falling to black, go manual, you'll feel like an expert, and digital/RAW allows you a lot of leeway to experiment.
@agima Thanks Brendan!
@cameronknowlton Thanks Cameron. All great points!
@ @ayearinthelifeof Thank you for the tip!
@tulipgirl Great info Alicia! I look forward to playing around with this new information!!
@chewyteeth I agree, I am excited to play around and see how close the meter is to what I see or like in my photos! Had no idea this tool was right there the whole time :)