Expose Yourself

Every SLR photographer deserves to learn how to properly expose a picture in their camera. So far, I've slowly accumulated knowledge in a series of steps.

1) There are usually 3 metering modes in your camera. Leave it on Matrix until you know what you're doing.

2) When using the Manual mode, there's a small graph you can see in your viewfinder. Changing the Aperature and Shutter Speed cause the little meter to move left or right. If you're too far one way or the other, an arrow points away from the centre. When you're in the middle, the picture will be exposed correctly - as guessed by your camera. Once I figured this out, I happily centred the (Matrix) meter before pressing the shutter, feeling marvelous that I was taking photos just like a professional.

3) Then I realized that my photos at night or in snow weren't turning out. That's because the meter works as it was engineered but not as expected. The meter wanted to make the photo average - and around cloudy winter days the meter's centre made the snow dirty grey. John Shaw's book "Nature Photography" corrected me. Using the spot metre and determining what would be exposed as light (like snow) or medium (like grass, sky, skin tones) or dark (like shadows), I now choose what should be exposed correctly and choose the settings appropriately. You can really mess up the Aperature/ Shutter Priority settings if you leave it on Spot and aim it at something light or dark. Be aware.

4) Shooting during mid-day causes unwelcome, ugly shadows to show up on subject's faces. Using flash (on-camera first, then off-camera TBA) can change the exposure again, leaving the settings you select to only capture ambient lighting. I haven't mastered flash yet.

5) Now I find out (from Understanding Exposure by Bryan Patterson) that shooting in RAW can fix exposure settings by 2/3 of a stop to reduce/soften clipping (jagged over-exposed highlights). This is another tool to fix the photo should you miss it in-camera.

Good luck. May the light shine soft and inviting.