Every modern DSLR has something called “Metering Mode”, also known as “Camera Metering”, “Exposure Metering” or simply “Metering”. Knowing how metering works and what each of the metering modes does is important in photography, because it helps photographers control their exposure with minimum effort and take better pictures in unusual lighting situations. In this “understanding metering modes” article, I will explain what metering is, how it works and how you can use it for your digital photography.
When I got my first DSLR (Nikon D80), one of my frustrations was that some images would come out too bright or too dark. I had no idea how to fix it, until one day, when I learned about camera metering modes.
1) What is Metering?
Metering is how your camera determines what the correct shutter speed and aperture should be, depending on the amount of light that goes into the camera and the sensitivity of the sensor. Back in the old days of photography, cameras were not equipped with a light “meter”, which is a sensor that measures the amount and intensity of light. Photographers had to use hand-held light meters to determine the optimal exposure. Obviously, because the work was shot on film, they could not preview or see the results immediately, which is why they religiously relied on those light meters.
Today, every DSLR has an integrated light meter that automatically measures the reflected light and determines the optimal exposure. The most common metering modes in digital cameras today are:
- Matrix Metering (Nikon), also known as Evaluative Metering (Canon)
- Center-weighted Metering
- Spot Metering (Nikon), also known as Partial Metering (Canon)
You can see the camera meter in action when you shoot in Manual Mode – look inside the viewfinder and you will see bars going left or right, with a zero in the middle, as illustrated below.
Metering shown in Nikon Viewfinder
If you point your camera at a very bright area, the bars will go to “+” side, indicating that there is too much light for the current exposure settings. If you point your camera at a very dark area, the bars will go to the “-” side, indicating that there is not enough light. You would then need to increase or decrease your shutter speed to get to “0″, which is the optimal exposure, according to your camera meter.
A camera meter is not only useful for just the Manual Mode – when you choose another mode such as Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Program Mode, the camera automatically adjusts the settings based on what it reads from the meter.
1.1) Problems with Metering
Camera meters work great when the scene is lit evenly. However, it gets problematic and challenging for light meters to determine the exposure, when there are objects with different light levels and intensities. For example, if you are taking a picture of the blue sky with no clouds or sun in the frame, the image will be correctly exposed, because there is just one light level to deal with. The job gets a little harder if you add a few clouds into the image – the meter now needs to evaluate the brightness of the clouds versus the brightness of the sky and try to determine the optimal exposure. As a result, the camera meter might brighten up the sky a little bit in order to properly expose the white clouds – otherwise, the clouds would look too white or “overexposed”.
What would happen if you added a big mountain into the scene? Now the camera meter would see that there is a large object that is much darker (relative to the clouds and the sky), and it would try to come up with something in the middle, so that the mountain is properly exposed as well. By default, the camera meter looks at the light levels in the entire frame and tries to come up with an exposure that balances the bright and the dark areas of the image.
2) Matrix Metering
Matrix Metering or Evaluative Metering mode is the default metering mode on most DSLRs. It works similarly to the above example by dividing the entire frame into multiple “zones”, which are then all analyzed on individual basis for light and dark tones. One of the key factors (in addition to color, distance, subjects, highlights, etc) that affects matrix metering, is where the camera focus point is set to. After reading information from all individual zones, the metering system looks at where you focused within the frame and marks it more important than all other zones. There are many other variables used in the equation, which differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Nikon, for example, also compares image data to a database of thousands of pictures for exposure calculation.
You should use this mode for most of your photography, since it will generally do a pretty good job in determining the correct exposure. I leave my camera metering mode on matrix metering for most of my photography needs, including landscape and portrait photography.
3) Center-weighted Metering
Using the whole frame for determining the correct exposure is not always desirable. What if you are trying to take a headshot of a person with the sun behind? This is where center-weighted metering comes in handy. Center-weighted Metering evaluates the light in the middle of the frame and its surroundings and ignores the corners. Compared to Matrix Metering, Center-weighted Metering does not look at the focus point you select and only evaluates the middle area of the image.
Use this mode when you want the camera to prioritize the middle of the frame, which works great for close-up portraits and relatively large subjects that are in the middle of the frame. For example, if you were taking a headshot of a person with the sun behind him/her, then this mode would expose the face of the person correctly, even though everything else would probably get heavily overexposed.
4) Spot Metering
Spot Metering only evaluates the light around your focus point and ignores everything else. It evaluates a single zone/cell and calculates exposure based on that single area, nothing else. I personally use this mode a lot for my bird photography, because the birds mostly occupy a small area of the frame and I need to make sure that I expose them properly, whether the background is bright or dark. Because the light is evaluated where I place my focus point, I could get an accurate exposure on the bird even when the bird is in the corner of the frame. Also, if you were taking a picture of a person with the sun behind but they occupied a small part of the frame, it is best to use the spot metering mode instead. When your subjects do not take much of the space, using Matrix or Center-weighted metering modes would most likely result in a silhouette, if the subject was back-lit. Spot metering works great for back-lit subjects like that.
Another good example of using spot metering is when photographing the Moon. Because the moon would take up a small portion of the frame and the sky is completely dark around it, it is best to use Spot metering – that way, we are only looking at the light level coming from the moon and nothing else.
Some DSLRs like the Canon 1D/1Ds are capable of multi-spot metering, which basically allows choosing multiple spots to measure light and come up with an average value for a good exposure.
5) How to change camera metering mode
Unfortunately, this varies not only from manufacturer to manufacturer, but also from model to model. On Nikon D5000, for example, it is done through the menu setting (Info button), while on D90 there is a dedicated button on the bottom left side of the shutter. On professional cameras such as Nikon D300s, Nikon D700 and Nikon D3s, there is a separate switch for camera metering. Changing metering on Canon cameras also varies from model to model, but generally it is done through a key combination (“Set” button) or camera menu.
Nasim Mansurov
common things, but useful for beginners ..
Nice article. Love your tutorials.
SM, thank you! :) Please let me know if you have any questions.
Till now, I was thinking the spot metering is done from the center of the frame. When I had to spot meter something, I usually set the focal point at the middle, take exposure and then recompose. You say that I can leave the subject in whatever area I want and then change the focal point to the subject and meter. That’s useful especially when using tripod.
Thanks for the nice article.
Liju, yo are most welcome! Give it a try – change the focus point to the corner and point it at a lamp and you will see that the camera will meter based on that focus point :)
I just found this site today while looking at purchasing a D300S over my existing D90 you saved me some money today so thank you. This article was as some one said common but, it is great to go back and reveiw. Some us need to go back every once in a while to refresh our memory. So thanks very much.
I am looking forward to your article on the difference between FX (full frame) and DX (cropped-sensor)
Richard, thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment! I really appreciate your feedback and I’m glad that you have found some of our articles useful.
I will try to post the FX vs DX article as soon as I get back, so stay tuned! :)
Just like the guy above, I got your website when I do research Nikon D300s. First of all, I would like to say Thank You very much for your website. It’s really helpful and easily to understand all your hints. I’ve read many websites about tutorial photograph but they do not explain clearly and detail like yours.
I’m just a beginer, and I bought my first DSLR Nikon D5000 last year. At that time, I could not see the differrent between D5000 and D90. That’s why I end up with D5000. Now, I feel my D5000 is not functionable enough for my photograph such as: I want to get challenge using dual flashs (one build-in flash and one or more wireless flashs) I know I can do that with a commander flash; with D90 is already build-in i-TTL. On the other hand, I want to upgrade my lens, then I realize D90 gets more choices of lens then D5000 (NO build-in focus motor).
Now, I need your advices that should I upgrade my camera or save money to buy good lens? If upgrade camera, what camera do you suggest? (of course, money is matter with me) : )
Once again, thank you very much!
Sam, you are most welcome!
In terms of upgrading your camera or getting a better lens, I would always suggest to do the latter. Unlike cameras, lenses are always a better investment. On top of that, here are two counter-arguments about what you’ve said about D5000:
1) Use of built-in flash as a commander is not that great. Most people do not know that the flash actually has to fire, even if you set it to be a commander only with no flash power. It might not be visible on most images, but if you are taking a picture of something close, you will see a nasty reflection/shadows from the built-in flash.
2) No built-in AF motor is a thing of the past. Nikon has released many new DX and FX lenses with AF-S that work beautifully on D5000/D3000. People used to complain that they could not use their 50mm f/1.4 and f/1.8 lenses and Nikon has already released an AF-S version of the 50mm f/1.4 and also released the Nikon 35mm f/1.8, which also works great on the D5000. So if you take into consideration what Nikon offers today in terms of lenses, having or not having an AF motor is not important anymore.
Save up for a professional-grade lens instead!
Hi Mr. Nasim,
Thank you for your advices! It’s true. I should invest on lens. Right now, I have 3 lens: 18-55mm (come with camera), 55-200mm VR, and 35mm f/1.8G. Since, I bought lens 35mm, lens 18-55 seems useless : ). I use my camera for landscape and portrait to my daughter 5 months old. Do you think what a professional-grade lens that I should invest?
I also have my amature studio room at home with 3 lights kit.
Thank you again!
Sam, you are welcome!
Yes, the 35mm beats the 18-55 in sharpness and contrast without a doubt!
In terms of a professional lens, what do you primarily photograph? Do you want a portrait lens, landscape lens or some other lens such as macro?
Let me know.
Also check out my “First Nikon Lens” article that I wrote a while ago.
I’m just a newbee with dslr and i bought the D90 but im always disappointed with the result coz most of the time i got overexposed picture…should i use the Matrix metering to improve my pictures? Thanks…This site is really great and helpful…
Mymy, certainly! If you are using spot or center-area metering, that could be the sole reason why your images are over-exposed. Matrix metering would definitely give you better overall results. You should only use spot or center-area metering for specific situations, as I pointed out in the article.
Thank you for posting this article on metering, it was a good refresher. I just became more serious about my photography about a year ago and started taking photography classes in the basics. I “learned” on my point and shoot though since it did have a manual mode, but then I quickly upgraded to the D5000 at Christmas time. I feel though that I’m in another learning curve. I thought I understood metering in class, but I’ve been frustrated lately trying to remember it all. I think I am getting myself confused between spot and matrix (I also learned on a canon p&S so I had to get used to Nikon terminology). I thought that my instructor said that spot metering was pretty good to use all the time, but now I am beginning to think he might have been referring to matrix because of what he showed me the other night at our camera club meeting. We were in a room that had mixed lighting. He had me point my camera (while in spot mode mind you) in one direction and meter for that area (actually had me meter for 1 and 2/3) and said that no matter where I would point the camera from then on in the room the lighting would be correct every time and lo and behold it was. I’ve tried this same technique since then at home and haven’t been able to replicate it. I’m wondering if I still am not understanding how to meter correctly or what I am doing wrong. Any suggestions?
Kristie, your instructor probably showed you how to do spot metering. With spot metering selected, if you pointed your camera focus point at a bright source of light, it would properly expose the light and therefore underexpose the surrounding area, while pointing the camera at a dark part of the scene would properly expose the darker side and possibly over-expose the brighter parts of the scene. If you did not see any over-exposed or heavily under-exposed areas, then he might have been using matrix metering, which evaluates the whole frame for light and then tries to get the right exposure.
Either way, each situation is different and I personally leave my camera on Matrix metering, unless I need to properly expose a specific part of a scene, in which case I switch to Spot metering.
Hi Nasim. Great tips. Ive been reading your tips for a while now and the result has been fantastic. Ive been able to take some good pictures albeit I still need to learn more.
I am using the Aperture priority mode for almost all my pictures with auto metering. I am however wondering if moving the metering to center focus will help from a generic perspective ? What are your thoughts on it ?
Also, I am right now on the kit lens ( 18-55).. very very tempted to go for the 35mm 1.8D.. but then again, is it worth the swap ? My pictures are not only portraits.. but landscape and all of that.. Please let me know.
Many thanks
d
Thank you David!
In terms of metering, keep it in Matrix metering for most pictures and only switch to spot metering when you need to evaluate light based on the center point or your focus point. Matrix/Evaluative metering is great for 95% of situations.
In terms of 35mm f/1.8G, if you like portraits and low-light photography, it is definitely worth getting one.
Love this site! I took a couple of photography classes this Summer and we covered metering but this actually gives me more information to add to what had been taught.
Your site is the best!
Thank you Nina, your feedback is truly appreciated!
This is a great site! Thank you for all the ideas.
Thank you Feodor!
I knew about the metering but always little confused about different meterings. Thanks for clearing that up! Great Article, Thanks Nasim!
You are most welcome Eric!