Master metering modes

Neil Freeman explains how the metering technology in your Nikon works and when to use the different modes to achieve the best results…

Understanding when to use the various metering systems in your Nikon will help you achieve better exposures. The first step towards getting a good exposure is to ‘meter’ the light in the scene that you are photographing. To do this, the camera needs to measure the brightness of the light that enters the lens.

Last issue we looked at exposure and the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO. You combine these settings based on accurate metering to get the correct exposure for your image. Your Nikon DSLR or Z-series camera has a built-in light meter which incorporates some very advanced technology to calculate the ideal exposure, but there can still be challenges when metering the light in a scene as the brightness across different parts of the scene can vary enormously.

For example, the sky will usually be much lighter than the foreground. So how does the camera know which of these is more important? Perhaps they both have equal importance, in which case an average reading is needed. Arriving at a perfect metering value isn’t made easier by the fact that the key area of your image will vary according to your composition. Depending on your camera, you can choose between up to four different metering modes to help you meter accurately in complex lighting.

The main metering mode, and the default that your Nikon is set to, is Matrix metering. This is by far the most advanced of the metering modes. Its full title is ‘3D Colour Matrix Metering II’, and it works by creating a pattern across the scene which is then broken down into a number of zones