There are times in life when decisions have to be made, technology is not able to function 100% autonomously, it needs us to guide it, to give it a clue.
Measuring light on SLR cameras is one of those settings that you have to decide for yourself. Your camera, however effective it is in automatic mode, cannot guess the most appropriate light measurement mode. You have to decide.
- In today’s article.
- I’d like to help you make that decision.
- I’m not going to make it for you.
- What I’m going to try to help you with is that you understand the meaning of measuring light in a simple way.
- Giving you some clues as to when to use each mode.
- Here we go.
To not produce overexposed (too bright) or underexposed (too dark) photos, the camera tries to “dose” the amount of light coming in. If you see that the landscape, the person or object depicted is dark, the camera tries to compensate by letting in a little more light. If, on the other hand, you notice that it is a very sunny day, or that there is too much light in the scene, you try to limit the amount of light that passes inside, thus ensuring high levels of light. correct lighting.
Are you following me? Well, light measurement is an indication that we give to the camera so that it can distinguish which part of the frame should be taken as a reference to regulate exposure (light capture). If some parts of the frame were too bright and some too dark, the camera would go crazy. Someone has to say, “Hey, forget that x-part of the framing, focus this other part, which is what really interests me when you shoot with the right exposure levels, if the rest is overexposed or underexposed, I don’t care. “
There are mainly 3 types. Point measurement: Here, the camera measures light from a specific point in the frame (usually the center, although in some cameras you can indicate it yourself) and regulates the amount of light you need to capture according to that measurement. the framing comes out darker or brighter, the camera doesn’t care. The interesting thing about displaying correctly is a specific and “specific” area. Hence the name.
You want an example? If you have a scene where most of the framing is dark and only a very small part is illuminated, it’s a good idea to use point measurement mode and tell the camera where that character you want to light up.
Weighted central measurement: Almost similar to the point measurement, except that it takes the indicated point as a reference, which gives it great importance in the calculation, but also takes into account the area around that point, though, giving it much less importance.
Example: in this example a central weighted measure was used, what had to be displayed correctly were the candles with the two main characters, however you could see more characters as well as the rest of the scene thanks to the camera also taking into account the rest of the framing.
Matrix measurement: This is the easiest way to use, and usually the most commonly used. Here you simply say to the camera: “Look, calculate the different light levels along the frame, take an average and take my picture with that average light. “Here, most framing elements tend to be well exposed because the camera does not reach extremes, but applies an average exposure. “
What situations is it preferable to use matrix measurement?Any photograph in which there is no element too bright or too dark.
Example: any photo in which we want to balance the light between dark and light areas would be ideal for measuring the light of the matrix.
As you can see, easy not. . ?