Confused about metering!

I've recently started learning about metering, but I'm very confused! Please could one of you lovely people out there talk me through step by step how to meter using a Pentax Kx? I would be most grateful, thank you!

Kinda depends on what I'm shooting...

I generally use centre-weighted metering but sometimes spot (uses centre AF-point)

If I have a person in the shot (ie; portrait) I meter off their cheek/face...

Landscapes I meter of the darkest thing I can see and if it's too bright I shoot it again a faster shutter; too dark I use a slower shutter...

If I'm using flash I ignore the meter altogether as my guess is usually pretty solid (this took a 'lot' of practice!!)


Basically... You need to decide what you want in terms of 'depth of field'...
Landscape - I want everything in the frame in focus so I shoot at f8 to f11ish - then adjust shutter til meter is at zero...
Portrait - I want eyes sharp and backgroung blured so I shoot between f1.4 and f4 - again adjusting the shutter til meter hits zero...

If I'm struggling to get a sharp shot - it's normally cos my shutter is too slow - At this point I raise my ISO...

Example... ISO-200 - f4 - 1/15th of a second... But I want say 1/60th... So I need to raise the ISO by 2 stops (each ISO increment is a stop of light - raising it increases the sensors sensitivity to light)

Hope this helps... From your post I'm unsure if you have a handle on how exposure works(?)

Ps... The Green button is amazing... Read your manual!

try this as well link

Hi,

The second info screen gives you quick access to setting metering. I use spot or centre weighted for wildlife, multi segment for landscape and the +/- button behind the shutter relase to fine tune by thirds of stops mainly to avoid burn out of skies.

The green button set to optical preview will stop down the lens (good for manual ones) and give you old fashioned meter readings in the viewfinder.

Then the histograms will show you what is good and bad, a nice mountain with no sudden peaks or too much to left or right. As others say lots of advice around on techniques in general.

Thanks for the help guys! Am I correct in thinking I need to be in manual mode in order to meter?

Eek, no! Agree the thread reads like that!

Normally you can let the camera handle that for you and there are different modes depending on whether you feel you need a fast shutter speed to stop the action, or to let you use a specific aperture to give a certain focus effect. It's a big topic, perhaps you can give an idea where you are having issues with metering and what is confusing you.

There are many online tutorials, eg http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm which apply to any camera, so have a read first to get started and ask for clarification if still not sure, perhaps how they apply to your Kx.

John

Very basically, a scene normally has a range of tones. From light to dark. In very many cases if you were to take average all these then the result would a "mid tone".

This is what the meter in your camera expects, and will adjust exposure accordingly to get that result.

So, if you were to take a photograph of snow, the meter would calculate an exposure which would render the snow grey. If you took a picture of a black cat in a coal house, the metered exposure would again be grey.

There are ways around this.

You can use exposure compensation. The camera can add 2 stops to make the snow white, or it can decrease by 2 stops to make the cat in the coal house black

Alternatively you can meter of something else and use that exposure, either by remembering the settings, or using the exposure lock on the camera. Grass is a mid tone. So meter off grass that is in the same lighting as your scene (no good metering of grass in blazing sunshine, and then taking a photo of something that is not in the same sunshine).

Other things you can use are what is called a grey card. The back of your hand can be quite good. Depending what shade you are, you may have to adjust slightly.

There are different meters built into cameras. All are looking to produce that mid tone. My understanding of them is that:

Matrix metering will try to get the whole scene to average out at the mid tone.

Centre weighted metering will look at the whole scene again, but when averaging out to the mid tone will not consider the lighting around the periphery as much as it does for areas towards the centre.

Spot metering looks at a small portion at the centre of the scene and will produce a mid tone for that small area only.

All of the different metering options have their place. I tend to use matrix and spot. Plenty on here predominantly use Centre Weighted.

Centre weighted or Matrix tend to get used to meter the scene in general. A perfect example for using spot would be a mid grey cat in a coal house. Centre weighted or Matrix would average everything out lightening the whole scene to grey, with the cat being a slighter paler shade. Spot metering on the cat would keep the cat mid grey, and it wouldn't care about anything else. You'd then find the rest of the coal house stayed black.

Experience will help you to interpret the results. Only practise and more practise will get you that experience.

Hope that helps