More on Metering

In my last post I mentioned using a gray card or spot metering off of something in the scene that is neutral, or has tones that are near middle gray. This does not always work, though. The natural light is definitely not white, and it varies tremendously by time of day and location. A gray card during sunrise would not be gray or neutral since the warm, crisp light of the rising sun would brighten and impart a color cast on the card. Also, the brightness of the card or an element in the scene is changed with the changing light, so metering the same way all of time will not give you the desired result. Perhaps you want the foreground to be dark, as in this shot at Deception Pass:

Sunset from Deception Pass #3

If I had metered off of the rocks I would have obtained more detail in the foreground, but would also have blown out the sky. I wanted the foreground dark, so I knew I had to underexpose the foreground from the meter reading. I also knew that my histogram would be shifted toward and clipped at the blacks, but since this is what I expected, it is what I looked for. More on histograms in a later post.

So what is the answer to metering in these difficult conditions? Look for how you want the scene rendered, meter off of elements for which you know where you want them to fall in exposure, and set the exposure to match. The meter will definitely not read 0.

I will say again that getting out shooting and studying your results is the best way to perfect your metering, but the practice will pay off.