Digital cameras work out the correct exposure by measuring the light levels across the scene you’re photographing. But they can split the scene up in different ways to make these measurements, using different metering patterns, or metering modes. By default, cameras analyse the scene by splitting it up into segments. This is called ‘multi-segment’ or […]
Average metering
This is a very simple type of exposure reading where the camera’s light meter just measures the total amount of light in the whole scene. It often leads to underexposure because bright areas in the scene have a disproportionate effect. Today’s digital cameras offer a range of more sophisticated exposure metering patterns and only a few still over averaged metering amongst these – some photographers still like it because although it’s a crude way of measuring the light, it’s quite predictable and easy to interpret.