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Home → Photography Tutorials

Understanding Metering and Metering Modes

By Nasim Mansurov 171 Comments
Last Updated On December 18, 2022

Every modern digital camera has automatic metering. This is a way that cameras measure the amount of light in a scene and automatically set one or more values in the exposure triangle: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Moreover, all such cameras have multiple metering modes, or different ways in which they give priority to parts of the scene.

Knowing how metering works and what each of the metering modes does is important in photography because it helps you control your exposure with minimum effort and take better pictures in difficult lighting situations. In this 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—a 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.

Table of Contents

  • What is Metering?
  • Matrix / Evaluative Metering
  • Center-weighted Metering
  • Spot Metering
  • Highlight Priority
  • How to Change Camera Metering Mode
  • How to override metering

What is Metering?

Metering is how your camera evaluates the light of a scene to determine the correct shutter speed, aperture, or ISO. 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 digital camera 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
  4. Highlight-weighted Metering
metering_modes_top
Metering modes are indicated in the viewfinder or LCD by variations on these icons

Some cameras offer more variations on this theme, such as Canon EOS models that have “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). Other cameras with subject-recognition modes like Sony cameras often have finely-tuned subject-weighted metering, which calculates the metering based on the subject.

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.

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.

Matrix / Evaluative Metering

Matrix Metering or Evaluative Metering mode is the default metering mode on most digital cameras. It works similarly to the above example by dividing the entire frame into multiple “zones”, which are then all analyzed on an individual basis for light and dark tones.

Nikon Z 800mm f6.3 VR S Landscape Sample Black and White Mountain
Matrix metering is a good starting point where the entire scene’s exposure is important, such as in landscapes. NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S @ 800mm, ISO 64, 1/160, f/6.3. © Spencer Cox

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 as more important than all other zones.

Matrix Metering

You should use this mode for most of your photography since it will generally do a pretty good job of determining the correct exposure. I leave my camera metering mode on matrix metering for most of my photography needs, including landscape and portrait photography.

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.

Center-weighted Metering

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.

Nikon 58mm f/1.4G Image Sample (81)
Center-weighted metering can be more useful for backlit subjects where a bit of overexposure near the strong backlight is expected. Nikon 58mm f/1.4G. © Nasim Mansurov

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 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.

Spot Metering

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.

Highlight Priority

Many cameras also have a highlight priority metering mode, which has an indicator icon similar to that of spot metering but with a star beside it.

Highlight priority metering aggressively protects the highlights in your shots. This can be very useful if you have some brighter areas near your subject that you don’t want to overexpose. I use it with bird photography because it can help protect brighter feathers or bright parts of the background from overexposing.

Mallard_Redit_Jason_Polak
I often use highlight-weighted metering to protect very small areas from overexposing, like small white feathers on the back of mallard ducks. NIKON D500 + 500PF @ 500mm, ISO 800, 1/640, f/5.6 © Jason Polak

On the other hand, highlight priority can be too aggressive in certain scenes as well. If there are bright but unimportant scenes of your shot, or parts you will later crop out, then highlight priority will certainly underexpose the important parts of your composition.

How to Change Camera Metering Mode

Most cameras can change metering modes either through a dedicated button or through the photo shooting menu. On Nikon Z cameras, it can be found in the shooting menu. On Canon R cameras, it involves pressing the “Q” button and selecting the metering icon on screen. Even if your camera does not have a dedicated metering button, you can often assign metering to a custom button.

ways_of_selecting_metering
Some cameras have a dedicated button for metering, whereas others have it in a menu

Unfortunately, this varies not only from manufacturer to manufacturer but also from model to model. On the Nikon D5500, for example, it is done through the Info button. On the Nikon D5, there is a separate button on the top left dial whereas on the Z9 it is in the photo shooting menu, but it can be assigned to a button also.

How to override 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 get confused.

In short, selecting the right metering mode allows you to quickly get close to the exposure you’re after. Nonetheless, you might find that the metering is not quite right, especially after reviewing your shots, or after looking at the in-camera histogram or zebras.

In this case, all cameras have a function called exposure compensation. Accessing it is typically a matter of pressing a button that looks like a ± sign or turning a dial. Many cameras in aperture or shutter priority mode allow you to directly change the exposure compensation by directly turning a dial.

ec_exposure_compensation_z9
Exposure compensation adjusts the initial calculated exposure from the metering mode, and it can be changed by pressing the ± button on most cameras such as on this Nikon Z9

Thus, if the metering is overexposing too much for your taste, you can turn the exposure compensation down. Likewise, if the scene appears too dark, you can turn it up. In other words, you should think of the metering mode as a good starting point, and the exposure compensation as the fine-tuning to get closer to the result that you want.

Take me to Chapter 8: Camera Modes
  1. Photography Basics Introduction
  2. What is Photography?
  3. Shutter Speed
  4. Aperture
  5. ISO
  6. Composition
  7. Metering (You are here)
  8. Camera Modes
  9. Focusing
  10. Flash
  11. Camera Settings
  12. How to Take Sharp Pictures
  13. Photography Tips for Beginners
  14. Photography Ideas

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Filed Under: Photography Tutorials Tagged With: Canon, DSLR Camera, Nikon, Photography Tips, Tips for Beginners

About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is the author and founder of Photography Life, based out of Denver, Colorado. He is recognized as one of the leading educators in the photography industry, conducting workshops, producing educational videos and frequently writing content for Photography Life. You can follow him on Instagram and Facebook. Read more about Nasim here.

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Shine
Shine
December 13, 2022 11:11 pm

Helpfull!!

0
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Anthony Patrick
Anthony Patrick
September 12, 2022 2:10 am

was so useful since am a beginner

0
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Alexander Sogliero
Alexander Sogliero
September 25, 2021 9:36 pm

Excellent article and well said. Thank you.

0
Reply
Sue
Sue
October 23, 2020 7:43 am

Just checked out a couple of the chapters and this is very good. I’m going to recommend it to some former students for “review”!

2
Reply
Olumide
Olumide
July 12, 2020 3:34 pm

This is the best Photography site I ever visited.

6
Reply
peter lokken
peter lokken
May 18, 2020 12:01 pm

Excellent resource and so clearly explained. This is my one-stop-shop for basic photo info

1
Reply
Sooli
Sooli
March 4, 2019 8:32 am

First of all, I am so thankful for the useful information that you share with us.
Then, I have a question. I am trying to do photo shooting from a white rectangular object in front of a black background. Which kind of the metering modes do you suggest?
I have set the mode on center-weighted Metering where the white rectangular object was surrounded by metering. Did I choose the proper mode?

-3
Reply
Gail Whisenhunt
Gail Whisenhunt
January 21, 2019 5:46 pm

Is there a book I can get so I can understand it better

0
Reply
Mahedi hassan
Mahedi hassan
July 25, 2018 11:41 am

Thanks and it’s very useful.
It’s my first step to become a photographer.

0
Reply
Nic
Nic
July 1, 2018 7:57 pm

Hi Nasim,

Great beginner series! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I really really like the pictures of examples you’ve shown throughout the series. I’m a visual learner so it really accompanies your elementary explanations well, especially on aperture – I didn’t understand it until I read your article!

I’ve recently bought an Olympus Trip 35mm for a holiday next month and I’ll be referencing this guide until my trip to learn and practice. If you have any specific tips on using an Olympus Trip 35mm I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again :)
nic

-3
Reply

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