Light metering
Part 4 of the course begins with a suggested exercise to complete “If you’re not completely sure how your light meter works…”

When I first started using a DSLR, I completed a course with the Jessops academy which included discussions about metering. This included the various metering modes available on the cameras – on mine these are
• Centre weighted average
• Evaluative
• Partial
• Spot

In addition we completed an exercise of photographing a white card using exposure determined by the camera – the result was a grey image.

Whereas when the metering was made for a grey card and then the image of the white made at the exposure, the card appears white.

Having completed these exercises I feel I am confident with the basic skills of the use of exposure metering, and exposure lock in order to be able to expose the image for which I aim. This is of particular importance with my film cameras as I am unable to confirm the correct exposure on site and only on developing the film. For this work I use three types of exposure metering: my 35mm SLRs have through the lens metering, I also use a hand held meter (for the medium format camera) and then I often check the exposure with the meter in my DSLR.