Manual Mode Cheat Sheet!

Visual Guide to Focal Length

How to Hold a Camera

Anatomy of an HD SLR

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Understanding Lens Markings

Camera setting Cheat sheet

Partial Metering VS Spot Metering.

            Partial and spot metering modes work very similar, the difference being, partial metering takes the exposure from approximately 6.5% of the viewfinder area, whereas for spot metering the brightness is measured using 2.5% of the scenery. On Nikon cameras, spot metering takes the exposure from approximately 5% of the scene depending on the model. As you can see, spot metering on Nikon cameras work very similar to partial metering on Canon cameras.

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:

1. Matrix Metering (Nikon), also known as Evaluative Metering (Canon)
2. Center-weighted Metering
3. Spot Metering

Some Canon EOS models also offer “Partial Metering”, which is similar to Spot Metering, except the covered area is larger (approximately 8% of the viewfinder area near the center vs 3.5% in Spot Metering).

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.

 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.

DSLR Basics

In digital photography, exposure is the unit of measurement for the total amount of light permitted to reach the electronic sensor during the process of taking a photograph. The two main controls your digital camera uses to control exposure are the shutter speed and aperture.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed, also known as “exposure time”, stands for the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor. If the shutter speed is fast, it can help to freeze action completely, as seen in the above photo of the dolphin. If the shutter speed is slow, it can create an effect called “motion blur”, where moving objects appear blurred along the direction of the motion. This effect is used quite a bit in advertisements of cars and motorbikes, where a sense of speed and motion is communicated to the viewer by intentionally blurring the moving wheels.

Aperture

Aperture is a circular opening (somewhat) in our lens that is adjustable from a very small circle to almost as large as the lens itself. We adjust it to let more or less light hit the digital sensor or film. Think of window blinds as your aperture, and the wall in your room opposite the blinds is your sensor or film. As we open the blinds, more light comes through and we can see the wall behind us get brighter and brighter