Welcome back! In my first post, Introduction to Photography through Light, I briefly introduced the concept that you camera measures light in monotones. Where one extreme is solid black or darkness and the other extreme is solid white or brightness. Right in the middle of these two extremes is neutral gray, which conceptually is “proper exposure”. Thankfully, getting an image to be exposed correctly isn’t a guessing game. And maybe eventually you will be able to analyze your light and make an educated guess as to what your camera settings should be, but that level of familiarity with light takes some time and practice. In the meantime, your camera has certain measurement tools built right in to help you make adjustments even before you take the picture.

Your Meter: The Number Line inside your Camera

One of the easiest ways to read light for the purpose of getting your exposure correct is through your camera’s meter. The great thing about your meter is that you can see it through the viewfinder. In fact, you can see it before you even snap a picture and it will adjust depending on your point of focus and metering setting so that the primary point of your picture is the component being measured. This allows you to make adjustments on the spot. When you focus, which happens if you press the shutter only half-way down, the camera’s meter takes a light measurement for you. If you are currently shooting in auto then you probably haven’t paid much attention to your camera’s meter before because the camera makes all the adjustments automatically for you. However, if you go and look through your camera right now you will be able to see it. It looks like a number line. If you were adjusting your exposure manually this meter is extremely helpful. If you think of it as a number line, divide the line in half with the number zero in the middle. Zero is essentially your neutral position and, in most cases, you will likely want to make your exposure balanced on the zero. The negative side of the number line (the left side) represents your blacks or shadows and the positive side of the number line (the right side) your whites or highlights. At each of the far ends you will have pure black and pure white and the in-between section will contain all your mid-tones. As I stated in my intro post, your camera does not see color the way you and I do but rather only in monotones (black and white). So we are simply measuring our exposure as a factor of black versus white.

Now, in general, there are always stylistic exceptions, you will want the exposure of your image to be inline with the zero on your meter. By doing this you are essentially balancing your shadows and your highlights evenly. As you move your exposure closer to one end or another of your meter, portions of your image get too dark or too white and you lose detail in those areas. So you will likely choose somewhere close to zero to preserve your details accurately.

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Just like a number line, the meter in your camera has little notches on either side of the zero to allow you to measure your distance. Unlike a traditional number line, the meter is measuring in “stops” or “thirds”. So every time you get to another notch away from zero on the meter we refer to that as being a “stop” or a “third” over or under exposed.

In a nutshell, that is how you read light in-camera. I would recommend starting to locate your meter and practice looking at it prior to snapping a picture. For now, you can continue to shoot in auto. I’ll “wean” you off the auto setting slowly as you get to understand light and how your camera interacts with it slowly.

Key Learnings

Hope you enjoyed today’s quick lesson. Please submit your comments and or thoughts below. I would love to hear from you.

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