Exposure/Light Meter Question

[MarshallClay]

Hello!
I was wondering about the light meter on my camera. From what I had come to understand when I first started shooting in manual, the goal was to get the marker right in the middle for good exposure.
Photos from my camera seem to have a tendency to look quite underexposed when I am in the middle of the meter. I have to go about 5-6 ticks above the middle of the meter to get what looks to me to be a photo of good exposure.
Is this a normal thing?
I use a Nikon D3400 if that helps at all.
Thanks!

Might be normal and might not -- show us pictures.

Nice camera -- why us it in Manual mode? Put the camera in Programed auto or Aperture priority or Shutter priority like the Pros do and stop fooling around with that amateur Manual stuff. With the camera in an auto/semi-auto exposure mode find the +/- exposure comp. control and learn to activate it. That will allow you to shift the exposure more or less.

What metering mode are you using? Your camera has multiple metering modes including matrix, average, weighted average and spot -- where is yours set? And show us pictures.

Joe

I have to admit this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone saying that manual mode is for amateurs, both from the studio, wedding, and street photographers I've met in person, and from any online article or video I've seen.
BUT with that being said, the auto/semi-auto exposure mode and exposure comp seems extremely valuable for me.
Right now I have it in matrix metering. And here are some photos (one is center on the light meter, and the other is 5-6 ticks above. Honestly, in this situation, even the second image seemed underexposed to an extent).View attachment 143479View attachment 143480

OK, here's your problem:

View attachment 143486

You had an exposure compensation already set on the camera. You're looking for the +/- symbol (generally a button) on your camera. -2 is a pretty major underexposure -- you're telling the camera with that setting that you want a 2 stop underexposure. You got what you asked for.

Joe

My crack about shooting manual being amateurish was to a degree sarcasm. There's nothing wrong per se with using a camera in full manual. The problem is that new photographers are very often given faulty advise about shooting manual and what would be sound reasons for doing so. If you're going to use the camera in manual mode but still rely on the internal meter in the camera then for the most part you're just manually setting the same exposure the camera would set anyway in an auto mode -- you're just slower.

The bottom line is: are you calling the shots or are you abdicating control to a set of algorithms in the machine. You can be fully in control and use the camera's semi-auto modes or Program shift mode just as well as you can using full manual. There are subtle variations one way or the other where the advantage tips slightly but it's nothing like the nonsense you typically here on the internet.

Your meter: you have the camera set to matrix meter mode. Read up on that and make sure you understand how it works. So much of all this is two sided. Matrix metering is more sophisticated than a metering mode that only takes a measurement. The advantage of matrix mode is that the camera software runs a set of predictive algorithms that try and improve the result while the disadvantage of matrix mode is that the camera software runs a set of predictive algorithms that try and improve the result.

You did hit it right on the head. I never even noticed this setting on my camera before. Apparently I must have changed it without knowing.
I also totally understand your standpoint on manual shooting.
Thank you so much, Joe. I really cannot thank you enough.

 

[rosh4u]

The exposure meter is only as good as the photographer behind the camera. Photography is about light. The exposure meter reads for the scene as the camera is set to meter and where the photographer meters. There are different metering modes, spot, center weighted, and matrix/evaluative. Understanding the modes will help you decide which to use in various situations. These will explain how metering works:
Understanding Metering and Metering Modes
Which is best? Spot, Center Weight, or Matrix metering? :: Digital Photo Secrets

As the photographer you have to read the light and decide on what you want to meter on to properly expose the subject. If there is too wide a range of light you have to decide whether you will live with blown out or underexposed areas or whether you will add light of your own to compensate as needed. If you haven't done so already read your camera manual on metering so you understand your camera and how to use the metering modes it offers.

Agree and also gone through the links shared. Its really helpful to know the details and other related stuff for light exposure.

 

[TCampbell]

A few other points about in-camera metering...

1) The in-camera meter works based on measuring how much light is entering the lens after it reflects off the subject. White subjects reflect a lot of light. Black subjects don't reflect much light. The meter in the camera is designed to estimate the reflectance of a "middle gray" (also subjective but for most cameras it's somewhere between 12-18% reflectance with most tending toward the 12% end of the range).

The idea behind this is based on the reflectance of average scenes. If your scene isn't "average" then the meter may not be accurate.

So they do one more thing...

2) While you typically can force the camera to meter off just one point (such as the center of the frame), most cameras default to taking many meter readings spread across the frame. Nikon calls this "matrix" metering. Canon calls it "evaluative" metering. But the point is... they take lots of meter readings to identify the bright and dark spots then identify an exposure which will hopefully manage to get most of the frame nicely exposed.

If you do use "spot" metering (metering on just a single point) then you want to make sure it's a spot where you want the critical exposure (e.g. a subject's face for example) and you don't particularly care if other background elements appear over or under-exposed. In other words... use this feature with care.

3) Even with these precautions (using matrix/evaluative metering) it's still possible to have a poor result because there are some extreme examples that will fool the camera. If I take a night scene ... dominated by blacks, the camera's metering algorithm is still designed to expect that the whole frame should "average" out to that middle-gray exposure. Except... this is a night scene and it's *supposed* to be mostly black when correctly exposed. This will cause non-black areas of the image to be over-exposed. The reverse is true of winter "snow" scenes dominated by "whites" where the camera expects an average of middle-gray and tries to bring the exposure down.

4) And of course you've already found the exposure compensation feature (whether intentional or not) which tells the camera to adjust exposure relative to what it would have done.

A hand-held "incident" light meter produces the most accurate meter readings because these meters are held in the subject's light (not the camera's light) and they meter the light "falling" on the subject (regardless of whether your subject is a particular dark or bright tone). In other words if a dark area is dark... it'll be because it's actually supposed to be dark and not because the light meter was fooled. The "incident" light meter measures the falling light from the source... not the light reflect off the subject.

Even with an "incident" meter, it's still possible to get a bad exposure. Often you have to meter many areas of the scene and find a middle exposure that should be able to get everything.

While I do own an incident meter, I mostly just rely on the in-camera meter. I only pull out the incident meter for certain types of shots.

 

[Bebulamar]

Manual mode is not for amateur, it's for beginner. If you're a beginner and not using manual mode then you're better off never will.

 

[Gary A.]

I'm not a beginner and I use manual mode.

 

[fmw]

I'm not a beginner and I use manual mode.

I use it every day. My 25 year old studio strobes don't support TTL. The other mode I use is program mode. It is a combination of AP and SP that allows me to step through the options that all result in the same exposure.

 

[TCampbell]

After shooting for years with cameras that only supported manual shooting, I am happy to report that these days I generally shoot in Av mode... or Tv mode. If I switch to manual it's generally because I'm using my hand-held incident meter and I want full control over the exposure with no input from the camera (something that I don't do very often.)

If you do flash photography using studio strobes (no TTL so the camera isn't aware that the lighting is about to change when you take the shot) then you pretty much have to use manual mode.

The overwhelming majority of my shots are taken on Av because for my type of shooting, shutter speed usually isn't the critical factor in the exposure, I'm usually trying to control the depth of field.

I hope nobody goes away with the impression that real photographers only use "manual" mode because that's certainly not true.

Every photographer should make sure they understand HOW to shoot in manual mode and be reasonably adept at doing so when the situation calls for it. But you really have nothing to prove by trying to use that mode 100% of the time. In certain situations it's a bad idea (if you have rapidly changing light conditions, for example).

 

[table1349]

After shooting for years with cameras that only supported manual shooting, I am happy to report that these days I generally shoot in Av mode... or Tv mode. If I switch to manual it's generally because I'm using my hand-held incident meter and I want full control over the exposure with no input from the camera (something that I don't do very often.)

If you do flash photography using studio strobes (no TTL so the camera isn't aware that the lighting is about to change when you take the shot) then you pretty much have to use manual mode.

The overwhelming majority of my shots are taken on Av because for my type of shooting, shutter speed usually isn't the critical factor in the exposure, I'm usually trying to control the depth of field.

I hope nobody goes away with the impression that real photographers only use "manual" mode because that's certainly not true.

Every photographer should make sure they understand HOW to shoot in manual mode and be reasonably adept at doing so when the situation calls for it. But you really have nothing to prove by trying to use that mode 100% of the time. In certain situations it's a bad idea (if you have rapidly changing light conditions, for example).

Well Tim, it's good to see that you have finally graduated from a beginner to an amateur.

 

[MarshallClay]

This thread wasn't created for people to bash each other.
And I'm not afraid at all to say I'm a beginner. But shooting in manual forced me to learn certain things that I wouldn't have gotten if I didn't.

 

[Derrel]

You did hit it right on the head. I never even noticed this setting on my camera before. Apparently I must have changed it without knowing.

YES, this can happen with new, modern, multi-button cameras. And also, with the so-called "one-wheel" cameras, it is SUPER-easy to accidentally hold that +/- button in with the index finger of the right hand, and then to turn the rear command dial, and BAM!!! Accidental Exposure Compensation is dialed into the metering system! This has happened to me, and many,many others when using the smaller "one-wheel" Nikons. Your issue has come up many,many times before over the years.

Hell, I did something similar with my brand-new D610 on my second trip out with it a week ago: around dark, I accidentally hit the BKT (bracket exposures) button which is located to the left of the pop-up flash...after sunset, I hit the pop-up flash to use it for a teeny-tiny bit of near-in fill lighting. I was unaware of that button's location...I knew I had bracketing going on, and tried to turn it off, but could not find the button!

 

[photoalsovideo.com]

Hello!
I was wondering about the light meter on my camera. From what I had come to understand when I first started shooting in manual, the goal was to get the marker right in the middle for good exposure.
Photos from my camera seem to have a tendency to look quite underexposed when I am in the middle of the meter. I have to go about 5-6 ticks above the middle of the meter to get what looks to me to be a photo of good exposure.
Is this a normal thing?
I use a Nikon D3400 if that helps at all.
Thanks!

Also try using shutter priority and let the aperture set itself. In shutter priority you will manually set the shutterspeed based on light conditions and the aperture will auto adjust. This will help determine if your manual settings are off a little. If you are still having issues with underexposed image in manual but it looks perfect in shutter priority then you need to check the manual settings.