DAY 161

PHOTOGRAPHY 101

Overview of Exposure

TOO LIGHT, TOO DARK, JUST RIGHT

Your camera’s built-in light meter measures the amount of light available in the scene and indicates if the scene will be overexposed or underexposed.

By now you may have made adjustments to your camera settings so that the indicator in the camera points to or lights up in the exact middle of the exposure meter readout. If the indicator is to the right of center, it is indicating an underexposed scene while an overexposure is indicated when it is left of center.

The light meter in the camera measures the amount of light reflected into it by the subject. Most often, it is an average reading of the light in the entire scene, not just the subject. This is called center-weighted metering. In most situations, this works adequately enough, but if you have large dark or light areas, the meter may give you an incorrect reading.

Sometimes overexposure or underexposure is used as an artistic element.

Check your camera manual to see if “spot metering” is available on your camera. This function will allow you to select a bracketed area and take a light reading from a specific area of your scene instead of the entire scene.

If this option is not available, the best way to compensate while relying on the in-camera meter would be to let the reading show a slight under-exposure for brightly-lit scenes and a slight over-exposure for darker scenes. —CWN