If you have a scene with a bright background and trust the meter reading, what will happen to your main subject?

• A. The main subject will be under exposed and in the print it will be too dark.
• B. The main subject will be properly exposed.
• C. The background will be underexposed.
• D. The background will be overexposed.

Answer: (A)

When you meter a scene with a bright background and trust that reading, the exposure is set to render the overall scene toward midtones. That means the camera will push the background to look properly exposed, which requires more light on the background and, as a result, leaves the foreground subject with less light. The subject ends up underexposed, appearing too dark while the background may look correctly exposed or even blown out. In print, the main subject would look dark relative to the bright background.

To avoid this, you can meter on the subject (spot metering), use exposure compensation to bias the exposure brighter, or add light to the subject with flash or reflectors so the subject isn’t darkened by the bright background.