exposure blending question?

Hi, wondering if anyone can help?

I'm trying to do exposure blending for sunsets etc. I've read that I need to expose for the sky and for the land and blend them. I know how to blend them in photoshop, and I've had results on continuous shooting mode with each photo a couple of stops apart (-2, 0 and +2), but sometimes they are too far apart or not far enough.

So far I've been in manual mode, getting the pointer in the meter to 0 and bracketing to -2 and +2. I'm not sure really what is meant by "expose for the sky or land". Should I use the spot meter on my camera and find a medium tone in sky or the land? How do I expose for my main exposure ie 0? How do I expose "for the sky" and "for the land"?

If I just point the camera at the whole scene and put the meter to 0, what if it's too bright or the sensor is fooled into over or underexposing? I know there are exposures bracketed either side, but how do i kjnow I'm getting the right one in the middle?

Sorry if my question seems daft! Thanks in advance!

I try exposing for my most important highlight, the one I can't have blown out. So when exposing for the sky, metering off of a middle point will give you a middle exposure, metering off of the highlights will give you a darker exposure, etc. It all depends on the look you want. In any event, you can always meter the middle of the entire scene and bracket it.

If you meter for the middle values of the scene you'll get an exposure that will be neither here nor there. Often in landscape photog., the sky is a whole lot brighter than the ground, so no one exposure will do it (unless you use a grad ND of course). Exposing for the sky simply means that if you meter the middle of the scene, you'll want to underexpose so as to not wash out the sky, or conversely, you'd overexpose to bring out details in the dark areas, usually the land.