The only thing I dislike more than presumptive people are presumptive light meters. Don’t get me wrong, light meters can be invaluable. However, they can also be the death of a perfectly good picture under perfectly good and ordinary lighting conditions. I use different cameras for different purposes and some have better light meters than others, some don’t have light meters at all. Take the The Canon 5D Mk II for example. It has four different light meter modes. Frankly speaking, I have no clue what they all do, because first and foremost I am too lazy to read the poorly written manual and secondly three of the four modes appear to do exactly the same thing; namely tell me something I generally already know before I’ve even fired up any of the three light meter modes.
The featured image is a prime example of what I mean. I took this picture with the venerable Sony Alpha 100. Besides featuring the same CCD sensor as the twice as expensive Nikon D200, it also features a more or less infallible light meter whenever you set it to either multi-segment or centre-weighted metering mode. This is a relatively rare achievement, especially given the camera’s technology dates back to 2006. Set another camera to anything else, such as evaluative metering, and you will be lucky if it doesn’t randomly under or over expose. Traditionally there where two types of metering common to most cameras: So-called centre-weighted average covering about one fifth of the central viewfinder area and the spot meter roughly covering between 2% – 3.5% at the centre of your viewfinder and image. While the centre-weighted mode does a fine job of reading exposure value averages in generally good lighting conditions, the spot meter really come into its own when you wish to get readings of specific pin points within your image. Taking the image of the couple sitting back to back reading the Sunday paper, I wanted to expose their faces correctly. I did this by pointing the Sony Alpha 100′s spot meter at the palm of my own hand that was also lit by sunlight, knocked off half a stop on the exposure reading to compensate for reflected-light luminescence and took the picture. Alternatively I could also have used the spot meter to try and measure the reflected light off one of their faces. However, one runs the risk of accidentally metering their hair or dark coats and this would ruin the exposure.
Whenever you use the evaluative metering mode you expose yourself to your camera manufacturer’s presumptions how you should see the picture you’re about to take. Most if not all modern digital cameras sport a highly arrogant and presumptive evaluative metering mode. If you’re happy to leave yourself and your photography in the hands of the different respective manufacturers, that’s fine of course. However, you’re unlikely to learn the fine art of deciding upon and using the correct exposure value in any given lighting situation. Each and every manufacturer enjoys telling us how they prefer to see the world, they also try and indoctrinate us by presuming to know best what they consider to be the correct exposure value for our own very personal scene. Put differently, would you let a complete and utter stranger guess and order your favourite ice cream flavour on your behalf, when in actual fact you could more easily and precisely order it yourself?
Happy snapping!
