Figure 6-35: The spot Metering sensitivity pattern.
|
Figure 6-35: The spot Metering sensitivity pattern. |
The third metering mode is called “Spot Metering”, and in fact when you invoke this mode a small circle magically appears in the very center of the live view image. In Spot metering mode, the camera looks only at the very center of the viewfinder when it determines the proper exposure, and ignores everything outside of that circle (see the blue circle in Figure 6-35).
|
Figure 6-36: Spot metering is necessary for situations where only your subject is lit well (but everything else is not). Had I shot this on Auto, the exposure would have been several seconds long and horribly overexposed because the camera would try to make the picture look 18% grey. For this image I spot metered on the subject’s face and locked it using the AEL function. Then I recomposed and shot. Very fast! |
Under what circumstances would Spot Metering be useful? Figure 6-36 provides an example.
Spot Metering by itself isn’t terribly useful unless your subject is in the very center of the image, which (for you fans of the rule of thirds compositional rule) will likely never happen, so I recommend using Spot Metering mode in conjunction with the AEL (Auto Exposure Lock) Toggle function. (Note that back in Chapter 2 I assigned the "Spot Metering AEL Toggle" function to the Left Arrow button so I could work quickly in difficult lighting just like this.) (I would have assigned it to the AEL button but the Eye AF function would have only been useable on that button.)
Now that I've explained what all of these different metering mode choices do, let me throw you a curve ball. You don’t really need them anymore. Recall that they all evolved from the days of film when photographers were shooting blind and needed reliable tools for when the light was non-average.
|
Figure 6-37: With Live View, you can very quickly adjust the exposure compensation to get the right exposure in difficult light. This is much faster than poking around in menus to change metering modes! |
Well, guess what? You’re not shooting film and you’re not shooting blind – you have a camera that uses Live View, and shows you how the image will come out before you take the picture. So, if Auto mode isn’t doing it for you, just use exposure compensation to make the image brighter or darker until it looks just the way you want it, then shoot! (Figure 6-37)
For more tricky compositions (like the Grant Corban shot above), I’ll often lock the exposure first (Spot AEL Toggle, Section 7.34) before adjusting it so once I get the exposure the way I want it I can try all sorts of different compositions.
Menu Position Menu --> 
5 --> White Balance
What it Does Invokes one of many tools for compensating for light that is not pure white
Recommended Setting: AWB unless your camera is producing yucky results under artificial light, in which case I strongly endorse “Custom WB” or shooting RAW and figuring it out later
|
Figure 6-38: White Balance Examples. Photos taken under normal light bulbs (remember those?) can turn out yellow-orangish, but the proper white balance setting can make it look the way we remember seeing it. |
Have you ever taken a picture indoors at night using a film camera (without a flash), and were surprised to see your results come out looking a little yellowish? Or have you ever taken pictures under a fluorescent light, only to step back in horror when the pictures turned out sort of a ghoulish green?
If so, you inadvertently witnessed evidence that all artificial light is NOT the same!
It turns out that, while sunlight contains all seven colors of the rainbow, incandescent light (that which comes from ordinary light bulbs) and fluorescent light radiate only 2 or 3 colors out of the spectrum. Our brains do a wonderful job of adjusting to this different light, but alas, one of the biggest drawbacks of film was that it could not automatically correct for indoor light. You had to use filters, otherwise the result was often strangely colored snapshots.
|
Figure 6-39: A comparison of spectrum put out by daylight (left), incandescent bulbs (center), and Compact Florescent bulbs (right). Our eyes and brain adjust seamlessly, but cameras often need help. |
This is where digital cameras are a huge improvement – they have the ability to sense what kind of light they are shooting under, and correct for it automatically. The ability for the camera to adjust to any kind of indoor light is called “White Balance” – it means that if you take a picture of a white wall, it will come out looking white even though it is being illuminated by the yellowish color of a lightbulb or the greenish color of a flourescent.
What the WB function does isn’t rocket science – all it does is add a tint to the image. No intelligence going on at all – just a blanket color cast. You can see this in action as you thumb through the options: Just do MENU --> 
5 --> White Balance (or invoke it from the Fn menu) and then scroll UP and DOWN and watch the parade of color casts get applied to the live view image.
