How to choose metering settings correctly to get accurate exposure?

Lead: In photography, especially landscape photography, the most basic thing is to measure light accurately to get the best exposure effect. The camera's built-in exposure meter can help you decide the combination of aperture and shutter. Cameras are different, but the exposure meter is the same. Take Nikon D700 as an example, it provides three metering modes: spot metering, central focusing metering and 3D matrix metering. Here we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these three different measurement modes. Finally, I will introduce the photometric methods I have been using and how to get the best results.

How to choose metering settings correctly to get accurate exposure photos by La Doustin Nescu.

Spot metering mode uses a circular area with a diameter of 4mm (about 65438+ 0.5% of the screen). The metering point of D700 is located in the center of the selected focus, so it can be measured with a non-center point. When focusing, the exposure meter will measure the light and calculate the required exposure combination.

When spot metering is used, the object in focus will get? Is that correct? Exposure, but not necessarily suitable for other areas of the picture. Using spot metering can often be frustrating because photos are always overexposed or underexposed. Because the automatic exposure success rate of spot metering is low, you must always adjust the exposure combination manually.

Center-focused photometry evaluates the whole picture, but it weights the circular area with the center diameter of 12 mm, which is a way between spot photometry and matrix photometry. If the hue or color in the scene is continuous and evenly distributed, spot metering or center focusing metering can work well.

What is the biggest advantage of using the center button to measure light? Metering in high-light areas? Metering the highlight area can ensure that it will not be overexposed, but the exposure requirements of other areas of the picture should also be considered.

Photo by Raluca Mateescu

The last one is 3D matrix photometry. In most cases, this is the recommended setting. In this mode, the camera will evaluate the whole picture and comprehensively consider the brightness, color, distance and other factors of the picture to get the exposure combination.

Personally, I only use 3D matrix photometry when I want to get the right exposure. Its accuracy is over 90%, and users don't need to adjust the exposure too much. This setting can reduce the exposure error rate and ensure that photos are recorded with the correct exposure every time the shutter is pressed. Even if there is overexposure or underexposure, there is very little adjustment work to be done. Because its result is very close to the correct value.

In photography, the importance of metering setting is not because it can be controlled, but for time. Time is one of the basic elements of photography. A photo is likely to determine its success or failure in less than a second. So I have been using 3D matrix to measure light. I have tried spot metering and central focusing metering, but they are not reliable enough in fast-paced shooting. Choosing metering mode not only means getting correct exposure, but also requires reliability, especially when facing a brand-new scene environment.

The photo was taken by Mickey Johnson.

But spot metering is also useful. When using a gradient gray filter, measuring shadows and highlights (usually the sky in landscape photography) can help me decide which level of filter to choose. For example, I have 1, 2 and 3 filters. If the spot test results of the shadow area show that the best exposure is110, f/4, while the highlight area is 1/80, f/4, I will choose a 3-level filter, because the difference between the shadow and the highlight is 3 (the principle is to reduce the exposure of the highlight area by 3 levels with gradient grey mirror, and the exposure combination required for both the shadow and highlight is. Translation notes).

Therefore, spot metering is used to determine the exposure value in different areas of the scene, and it is convenient to use other technical means (gradually grey mirror, shaking black cards, etc.). ) to achieve accurate exposure of the whole scene. For other shooting, I will use 3D matrix to measure light.