I posted this link earlier but it got buried in the thread. it's a nice
online exposure simulation that's nice to play with...
start off with the "shutter and aperture" section and try each one
individually and then together.
then try the "iso section" and "camera shake."
now when I'm out on the field
how do I know which one to use?
it depends.
are you taking portraits where you want control of your depth of field?
then start off with your
aperture then balance it off with your shutter speed.
or set your camera to
aperture priority where you select your desired aperture
and your camera will select the "appropriate" shutter speed.
are you taking action shots where you want to freeze or show flow of motion?
then start off with your
shutter speed then balance it off with your aperture.
or set your camera to
shutter priority where you select your desired shutter spped
and your camera will select the "appropriate" aperture.
you have your settings to get the shot you want but the photo still
comes out too bright or too dark and you've run out of options in
the selection of aperture and/or shutter speed? then adjust your
iso
ok... cool! but
how will I know my photo will come out "properly exposed"
first you should understand meters... there are two basic categories:
- incident meters
- measures light falling on a subject
- usually found in hand held lightmeters
- more or less very accurate giving you "properly" exposed shots if you use the settings it gives you
- reflective meters
- measures light reflecting off a subject
- usually found in cameras so you better be familiar with this one
- very dumb as it wants everything it measures to come out middle gray or 18% gray (meaning that only 18% of light is reflected off a subject)
- has more or less three settings
- spot - measures a small spot in the center of your viewfinder and can be the most accurate if you're in the know
- center-weight - measures the spot and several areas around it
- multi-segment (aka evaluative or matrix) - measure sections in all areas of the viewfinder and usually "smarter" now with current camera models giving more "accurate" exposures
using meters with AE modes
being able to spot meter is one of the many reasons photographers
move up to higher camera models. why? because it can be use as
a key to getting exposures close to what you want.
now in AE modes you select one side of the equation and the camera
will select the "proper" aperture or shutter speed to balance it off.
borrowing a photo from homryap's post this is not your meter in AE modes...

this is showing your exposure compensation adjustment... being no compensation
when set to zero. we'll get back to this.
now remember that reflective meters are very dumb. they want everything to
be middle grey as explained in
Photography basics – understanding exposure"Do you have your camera nearby? Take a picture of a white sheet of paper. — just the white paper, without anything on it. Download the picture and look at it on the screen. I’m willing to bet it came out gray-ish. Take another shot of a black T-shirt. Have a look at it, it’ll be gray or dark gray. Why?
White or dark backgrounds can fool the camera meter. The camera tries to average everything to gray. If a scene has bright areas and dark areas, the camera can determine a proper average and from that, it can determine the exposure. But, if you’re shooting tricky scenes, it’ll fail (even a sunset or a portrait against a white wall can be considered tricky, so don’t think you won’t encounter such cases)."
spot meters help beat the trickiness as you can measure smaller portions of
a scene like the subject itself. the closest you can probably get in entry-level
cameras would be center-weight.
so now you can get a good meter reading. now what do you do with it?
shooting in AE mode and knowing that the meter is measuring for middle gray
you can now compensate accordingly. how much you compensate will be indicated
in your viewfinder as shown above.
but how much to compensate? this where knowledge of the zone system comes in to play...
different brightness levels are categorized into different zones. each zone
being a one whole stop difference from another zone. searching the web
you can find lists of different things and what zone they fall in and you'll
know how many stops up or down you will have to compensate your exposure.
hint-hint: most filipino skin falls under zone V
now using
meters in manual mode?
I'll save that for another day
