Switched to metering for shadows instead of highlights and my portraits finally got life

I spent about 6 months shooting portraits on my old Pentax and wondering why every face looked so flat and washed out. Then a guy at the camera shop in downtown Austin told me I was metering wrong for the situation, he said point the camera at the darkest part of the face and lock that reading in. Now my indoor shots have way more depth and the skin tones look natural instead of blown out. Has anyone else tried changing their metering style and got totally different results?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookepark5d ago

Yeah I tried switching to spot metering and just ended up with a bunch of photos that looked like they were taken in a coal mine. That was a fun month of editing.

the_rose5d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I've been there. Took me a good few months to figure out that spot metering is really only useful if you're aiming for a very specific look, like a backlit subject or a really dramatic contrast scene. What helped me was going back to evaluative or matrix metering and just using the exposure compensation dial to tweak things by a stop or two, that way I'm not guessing where the camera is reading the light. Your mileage may vary, but I also started metering off something mid-toned like green grass or gray pavement and then locking that exposure before recomposing the shot, which saved a lot of those dark, muddy frames. It's a learning curve for sure, but after a few weeks of trial and error it starts to click.