V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 251
• In
very
bright
scenes, the camera sets exposure either
biased towards the lowest value it sees (usually only
when contrast is low), or towards an average across
the scene (when contrast is very high). My observation
is that Nikon has modified that latter point to be
“towards a setting that will hold the majority of the
highlight detail,” which can be even lower in
exposure than the average in some situations.
Lesson:
when it’s bright, highlights are at slight risk, especially
if the contrast is high, while mid-tones and shadows
are more likely to be underexposed.
• The camera biases exposure slightly towards the
brightest area in a scene when contrast between
regions it is measuring is seen as low, and you’re in
“normal” lighting (not too bright, not too dim).
Lesson:
low contrast scenes get exposed right most of the time.
• If the contrast between matrix regions is very low,
there’s always a tendency for the matrix meter to set
an exposure based upon the central area, regardless of
brightness.
Lesson: watch exposure with off-center
subjects when contrast is low. Again, keep the
autofocus sensors over the critical exposure area, if
possible.
Don’t panic. While that was a lot of detail, we’ll make a bit
more sense of how to evaluate an exposure in the Histogram
description coming up later in this section.
Before leaving the matrix metering, we need to discuss one
other thing: gamma. One relatively common complaint by
first-time D300 users is that the camera “overexposes.” But if
you look at some of the images these people are objecting to,
the image isn’t actually overexposed (i.e. the highlights aren’t
blown out).
It appears to me that Nikon’s interpretation of mid-range
brightness has changed with the D300. The
Standard
Picture
Control has a default
Brightness
setting of
0
. But this
produces mid-range tonalities that are somewhat higher in
