Something clicked. I figured out the light metering thing last night. Whoo hoo!! I rock.
I just could not understand it. The books said that metering takes place in your viewfinder – telling you what aperture or shutter speed to use, but I just wasn’t figuring that out and the manual wasn’t cutting it for me. I wasn’t understanding something. I sorta figured I could point the camera and it would tell me what to set it on for optimal exposure (now that its clicked, that sounds silly) Finally it clicked. Its the little bar thingy. You set one or the other (aperture or shutter speed) and then adjust the other until you get the bar at the exposure you want (optimal is at 0, over-exposed moving up on the bar towards the positive, and under-exposed is moving down toward the negative).
These manuals and photography books are clearly not written for complete newbies like myself.
Ah-ha! I was not getting this either, and was pretty confused while reading about the camera telling me what would be the optimal exposure. Your post makes sense, but I don’t have a bar thingey on my camera. At least, I don’t think I do.
I just checked, and I do have something like this! It’s a little box with a plus sign on one side and a minus sign on the other. Is that what yours looks like?
Mine’s actually a little bar with a line and a zero in the middle, and a plus on one side and a minus on the other, and you can see how close to zero you are – kinda looks like this:
-……….0……….+ and then you have bars indicating where your current settings land in terms of exposure, so the closer to 0 the closer to optimal exposure, but if you want it slightly underexposed, you can go a bit to that side, etc.
But maybe yours is that box. Do you have the camera manual? Mine was very unclear..I figured it out by using that Understanding Exposure book and just playing around. Next time I see you, I’ll try to remember to bring my camera, and I can show you the bar thingy in my viewfinder and see if that helps us figure out yours
Now that I figured it out, it ALL makes sense (ok, maybe not ALL – but now when I read the photography books, at least I know how to use the meter on my camera.)
That’s AWESOME!!! Good for you! I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing. I’ll go check my camera and see if I can figure it out now.
What books have you read? I just started reading _Understanding Exposure_ by Bryan Peterson
Becky, I am reading Understanding Exposure too. I read the same page over and over again, so I’m not very far into it – I’m still in the aperture section of the book…I read a page, then I try some stuff, then I read that page again, and try some more stuff, sometimes I go back a few pages and read it again a week or two later, lol. I also just got another book called something like Digital Photography or something like that, and have been reading a bit from this Nikon book that came with the camera bag I got, as well as websites, etc.
Let me know if you figure it out Becky. Good luck! I joined a few nikon user groups over at Flickr, but was too embarrassed to ask the pros about this. All the books and websites and everything just make it see so basic..like pushing the shutter release button. I was feeling mighty dumb that I couldn’t figure it out
I wonder if we got the same bag. LOL Mine came with a book, too. Cool about reading the same book! I’ve been working slowly through them as well. I checked them out from the library for now, but I’ll order some favorites to have around permanently.
Asking pros… at this point, I don’t even know what to ask! LOL