New Photographer Here

So I got a Canon Digital Rebel XS (1000D) with the 18-55mm kit lens, and the 50mm f/1.8 II prime lens for Christmas as I'm interested in portrait photography. I'm planning on purchasing the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens for when I'm hiking and want the longer zoom for wildlife.

I purchased the book Understanding Exposure and I've read it, but don't quite understand it all. Such as, what do you meter off? I understand why you'd want a slower or fast shutter speed, or a larger or smaller aperture but when metering how do you know what to meter off of so you have a perfectly exposed photo?

I'll give an example. Using my 18-55mm kit lens I was trying to capture a large snowy field with some trees in the background. The sky was blue with some nice clouds. So I metered off the sky and changed the aperture until it said it was the correct exposure. When I captured the scene, the foreground was really dark but the sky turned out well. So I tried again this time metering off of the snow and the foreground came out well but the sky was super washed out.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong here. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ideally you want to meter off of something with medium tones. Because your meter is reading light reflected off the subject, its subject to error because its designed to make the subject that it meters off of gray. So if you meter white snow it underexposes to make it look gray, if you meter a black curtain over exposes to make it gray. So when you meter, you want to try to find something in the middle toes, like grass, or anything that would be gray if you converted it to a grayscale.

You probably ought to start using your histogram if you arent yet. Its a graphical representation of the light and dark values in your photo. Do a search for ETTR here to learn how.

#1, snow is can be hard to photograph, all that white is easy to over-expose so everything else is dark by comparison. I think starting with snow may be a bit frustrating.

#2, for landscape photography the sky is almost always blown out, and many landscape photographers use a graduated density filter thing (GND) which basically balances the lightness to the darkness of the ground/landscape.

#3 photographing people can be a lot different, I spot meter off the face because I always want to be sure that the skin and face is exposed properly, but I also have to be VERY aware of the light, otherwise I may wind up with over-exposed sky's and backgrounds.

The above advice about the histogram is great. I use that as well. I leaned about it in an intermediate photography course at a local parks and rec, and in some random photography books. (captured by the light is GREAT for portrait stuff).

pixiepearls wrote in post #11837022
#2, for landscape photography the sky is almost always blown out, and many landscape photographers use a graduated density filter thing (GND) which basically balances the lightness to the darkness of the ground/landscape.

Getting it right in the camera can be very difficult, so you might think about shooting in RAW. Jpg is an omelet. RAW lets you cook your eggs any way you want them.

As for metering, see if this makes sense to you: Need an exposure crutch?
Why?
Post #47