Following on from my previous photography tip “Adjusting Your White Balance” I am now back with my Fourth photography tip on setting your camera up, This is part of the 10 settings that professional photographers use…

Setting your spot meter is one of the most important things to do and one of the most misunderstood settings as well..

Digital cameras have their own on board light metering system. The ways to describe the metering is called slightly different in different cameras..

Spot Metering will make sure the spot that you are pointing on is correctly metered, a great example is shooting a bride and groom, the bride has paid $2000 dollars for a spectacular wedding dress and the man is in a rented $80 a day suit. You point the camera on the Bride and the dress will be perfectly metered and not blown out and you will see all the fine work gone into the dress. With spot metering, the camera will only measure a very small area of the scene (between 1-5% of the viewfinder area)

If I was to use centre weighted on the same situation it would look at both people and meter at a equal distance between the 2 of them, it would only concentrate on the 2 people and not meter the area around them. It will lighten up the bride a little bit so you will lose the fine stitching and it will darken the suit so you wont see the pockets ect. Centre weighted tries to get an even match with the 2 subjects in the photos, the meter concentrates between 60 to 80 percent of the sensitivity towards the central part of the viewfinder.

Matrix metering, all over metering or multi-zone takes everything into account, the sun, clouds, the scene people ect and takes a meter of the whole situation. It is sometimes called average metering. This mode is generally the default mode in most cameras..

Test your camera out shooting with the different modes to see the different exposure each mode gives you, these settings can make or break a photo in difficult lighting situations..

Best of Luck David…

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Read more photography tips from David Pix

Setting Your Diopter

My first tip is setting your Diopter. The diopter is located on your viewfinder, I’ll just explain why this is so important, if you can imagine being at an event, we look through the viewfinder rather than have a live view of the event we are photographing, and the reason behind this is simple, if we have a live view and we go into the sun you will not have a true image of how your photo will turn out Read More

Adjusting The Burst Rate

Following on from my previous photography tip “Setting Your Diopter” I am now back with my second photography tip on setting your camera up, This is part of the 10 settings that professional photographers use..

Adjusting the burst rate/mode

Professionals use the burst mode to make sure that the probability of a good photo is increased, especially when shooting Read More

Adjusting Your White Balance

Following on from my previous photography tip “Adjusting the Burst Rate” I am now back with my Third photography tip on setting your camera up, This is part of the 10 settings that professional photographers use..

Adjusting your white balance.

Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, however Read More

About The Author:

David Pix

David Pix teaches photography to a range of students from beginners to advanced daily, in a real classroom. He has also put together a successful course to enable people to learn from home & at their own pace, and is written to encompass all levels. Just a few of his qualifications include - Associate Degree of Graphic Design (majoring Photography) ,Advanced Diploma of Graphic Design, Master class cinematography course (Certificate). Visit his Website