Curious question while reading "Understanding Exposure"

Thanks everyone for such a very informative thread. And I apologize for not having updated the thread for a couple of days.

Wow, where do I begin. There are so much excellent points here and it's all beginning to make sense to me . Lacking the clear blue sky the I was aiming for (due to our current weather), I went out over the weekend to test these out, after reading all the responses. It was a cloudy day so not really the conditions I was hoping for.

Anyways, as what's been said here, if I meter off of the cloudy sky, recompose and take the shot, the scene turned out to be massively underexposed. And I did find out that the sky metered to about +2 than the ideal exposure for the scene. In the couple of hours that I have been out practicing, I've tried mostly manual, then Av for some DOF shots and Tv so I can take photos of the seagulls flying around. It has been a very educational experience. Can't wait for a clear blue sky to show up to see the difference between that and cloudy.

And I found that for the most part, metering off of the sky really works well if majority of the scene receives the same lighting and either frontlit or sidelit, to some extent. Once the subject is under the shade or backlit, it's all a completely different game. Gotta make compromises as to either blow out the highs or underexpose the subject as some type of silhouette.

Even though it did confuse me with this one bit, I still feel that Peterson's book is a good read for someone who's starting, like me. It gives me creative ideas and a baseline for experimentation with the hope that someday, it'll be second nature to me.

And ..... I totally forgot about the point on ISO, the other side of the triangle. I tend to leave ISO for last, mostly. On a DOF shot, I set the aperture, then adjust the shutter to something I'm comfortable with, then only touch ISO if my settings don't let enough light to come in.

Also need to learn how to use the live histogram {thanks for the tip}. Never realized it was there since I always use the viewfinder when composing the shots.

Also went back to the Exposure chapter on Peterson's book and re-read the section on "Six Correct Exposures vs One Creatively Correct One". Things are beginning to click to me now.

Thanks everyone, once again, for such a very informative exchange of ideas. Nothing replaces the collective experience of many photographers. My daughter and I are in this together. We're both learning together and when questions like this come up, I hope to be able to give her good advice. The fall colors in New England are peaking so hoping to get out a lot to experiment.

Check out this 7 part tutorial on the Zone System. Probably the best one I have found that describes it such great detail and in a very easy to understand manner:
1. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=qUBezWwg4EI
2. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=wza7q4xCwd4
3. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=S8XOIzY1-mQ
4. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=u9uH5fz5Tcw
5. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=t2rE8j3R-JE
6. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=v7bAm4GxDAA
7. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=hxKIEjIogWY

Snydremark wrote in post #15057937
As the others mentioned, there are other things to use a guideline; green grass/bushes (not precise but gets you really close), water, skin, etc. Plus, you can use white or black, just knowing that they'll be *around* +/-2, respectively. Stop sign red is remarkably close, too, interestingly enough.

Once you start getting a feel for the results you get from different subjects like that, it gets a lot easier to identify and predict where your exposure's going to be.

So what you need to do is to figure out just what part of the subject you're working with is the most important. Generally, for most situations, this is what I use: Need an exposure crutch?
See if it makes sense to you.

francis_a wrote in post #15065013
And I found that for the most part, metering off of the sky really works well if majority of the scene receives the same lighting and either frontlit or sidelit, to some extent. Once the subject is under the shade or backlit, it's all a completely different game. Gotta make compromises as to either blow out the highs or underexpose the subject as some type of silhouette.

Even though it did confuse me with this one bit, I still feel that Peterson's book is a good read for someone who's starting, like me. It gives me creative ideas and a baseline for experimentation with the hope that someday, it'll be second nature to me.

Also keep in mind a lot of landscape shots are post processed to correct foreground/background exposure differences

@fljoemon: Ah yes, the Zone System. Thanks for reminding. I started reading about it when it was mentioned on the first page. Gonna read up more on it and watch the videos.

@PhotosGuy: I read the thread you linked. It's very helpful and excellent info. Good stuff for me to start practicing with.

@watt100: Ya, I'm beginning to realize that now. When looking at images posted here, I had the misconception that it's all camera (well some have HDR on-board) and I find out that it's not all in-camera. PP plays a major role too. Trying to learn that part too