Nikon 25420, D40 61

knows how to make white snow or sand look white, instead of a conventional light meter's making everything look medium 18% gray. It applies the zone system automatically to attempt to render a correct exposure under difficult and contrasty situations. When shooting in a hurry under rapidly changing conditions, which is the whole point of using a small format camera like a Nikon, there is no better way to meter your exposures.

An example of too much scene contrast midday.

No meter can correct for poor lighting or too high a lighting ratio. This confuses many into thinking that their meters are defective, even though the meter is perfect. If you have problems with highlights washing out even though your subject is well exposed, or with shadows going too dark even though the main subject is OK, your problem is with too much contrast in your lighting, not your exposure. For photographs with people, use your Nikon flash under all conditions and you will probably improve most of these problems.

Lighting is the most important technical and artistic aspect of painting, art and photography. Others have already written a lot about lighting, so I won't try to duplicate that here. I like to write about things you can't find anyplace else. It is imperative that you learn to be sensitive to the quality of light, and learn to be patient in waiting for it. This is very, very important!

All the other major SLR makers since about 1990 have imitated this meter under many different names. Canon calls it "evaluative," and most camera makers brag about it by specifying how many sensors they use. Even Leica attempts to copy it. Today's Leica R8 has about the same technical sophistication as the 1983 Nikon FA.

The number of sensors is unimportant. The wisdom that goes into the firmware that interprets the data from the sensors IS what's important.

The original Nikon FA had only 5 metering sensors. Today even the F100's Matrix meter works with the same 5 main sensors, and only adds the 5 spot sensors into the mix for fine tuning. Canon's excellent Rebel 2000 claims 35 sensors; I still prefer the Nikon meter's programming. The Nikon N90 had a whole bunch of sensors right in the very center of the image, which makes for an impressive number-of-sensors spec, but has nothing to do with the meter's ability. Nothing is wrong with the N90's meter; it's just that the N90 sounds like a toy when it runs.

converted by Sándor Nagy