Camera Metering Modes in Photography

Your camera has a built-in light meter to assist you in reading the light or a particular scene. The light meter reads the amount of light in your frame, balances that light out to middle gray and give you what it thinks is the proper exposure.

The camera has different metering modes to change the way in which it reads the light. Cameras usually come with three different metering modes and these three modes might have different names depending on the brand of camera that you are using, but they are pretty much standard.

Evaluative Metering

Evaluative metering is what your camera is stet to by default, and it is what I recommend to those of you that aren't comfortable changing your metering modes just yet. The evaluative meter will measure the amount of light present in your entire frame. It will then balance that light out to middle gray to give you what it thinks is the proper exposure.

Center-Weighted Metering

Center-weighted metering only meters the middle area of your scene and ignores the rest of the frame. This is particularly good when you want to meter a subjects and not the background. In situations when you have strong backlight, the evaluative meter gets tricked into thinking your subject is over exposed and end up capturing it as a silhouette. Center-weight metering can be used to make sure that you only meter your subject.

Spot Metering

The spot metering mode meters the very center point of your scene. This metering mode is useful when there is a particular area of your photo that needs to be metered perfectly. If you have a area of a persons skin, for example, that you want ensure that it doesn't get blown out, you can align the center of your frame to that portion of the skin, set your exposure to the given meter reading, and recompose to take the picture. That way, the skin that you metered will be properly exposed.

Conclusion

The three common metering modes in your camera all help you to produces images the way you want them to look, so learning about them is crucial. Once you get comfortable using them, they will become second nature and a natural part of your workflow.


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