Renault78law
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2003
- Messages
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I've read Understanding Exposure and browse photography forums and have a good understanding of the functions for the manual controls of my SLR. One topic that is merely glossed over in the book is where to point your internal light meter to adjust your exposure. This seems extraordinarily important. Anyway, he often suggests pointing the camera at the sky (low in the horizon), adjusting exposure, then composing the shot. Is this how you do it? More importantly, why?
Using a gray card obviously makes the most sense, but is often not practical. I've also read the "zone" method that A. Adams described, i.e. you set your exposure to compensate for whatever shade of gray you point your camera at. I often end up with blown highlights.
Another general question. Should any of this change if you're using matrix metering? Seems like the purpose of matrix metering is that the camera is going to "guess" the proper exposure based on thousands of "scenes" that the camera is programed to recognize. It would seem that trying to adjust exposure in matrix mode is somewhat counter-productive. Thoughts?
Using a gray card obviously makes the most sense, but is often not practical. I've also read the "zone" method that A. Adams described, i.e. you set your exposure to compensate for whatever shade of gray you point your camera at. I often end up with blown highlights.
Another general question. Should any of this change if you're using matrix metering? Seems like the purpose of matrix metering is that the camera is going to "guess" the proper exposure based on thousands of "scenes" that the camera is programed to recognize. It would seem that trying to adjust exposure in matrix mode is somewhat counter-productive. Thoughts?