Spot Metering Made Easy Through The Lens For High Dynamic Range Landscapes

One of the most accurate and
powerful ways to take meter
readings of light through the
lens to determine the dynamic
range of a scene is spot
metering. It can help you produce a correct exposure
every single time you press the
shutter release button.

If you've struggled to produce
photographs that look right in
the shadow, midtone and
highlight regions then this
step-by-step guide can help
you get things right.

First, let me clear a
misunderstanding about
dynamic range which lies
amongst many photographers.
Dynamic range in photography
is the difference in brightness from the lightest highlights to
the darkest shadows. Let's say
you were shooting a sunset
scene where the sky was lit up
bright by the sun and the
foreground was rendered dark because of its distance from the
sun and the low altitude of the
sun itself at that time of day.
Such scenes have dynamic
ranges of several stops.

Photographers spend a lot of
time trying to figure out the
dynamic range of their digital
cameras. This is the wrong line
of thought and is completely
irrelevant. Think about it. What good is a camera whose
dynamic range is nine stops or
nine exposure values when the
scene's dynamic range is 15EV.
In such instances, you can't
possibly capture all the light from the lightest lights to the
darkest darks using this
camera. You will have to use
either, a graduated neutral
density filter or take two or
even three exposures and combine them digitally using
software to create a high
dynamic range image.