Originally posted by julianbenjamin Hmm.. Maybe I need to meter around the focus point instead of metering the whole scene like it's set to now?
It's a case of quickly judging the scene visually to decide on the appropriate metering mode. If there's a good, reasonably average mix of bright, dark and mid-tone areas in the scene, matrix metering can be very accurate. However, if most of the scene is very bright - e.g. shooting into a day-time sky, or a snowy field - it'll tend to under-expose, so you should dial in some +ve exposure compensation. If most of the scene is dark, it will tend to over-expose, so you need to add -ve exposure comp.
Remember, the camera's metering aims to average out the metered area to mid-tone grey.
In circumstances that you know will confuse the metering - e.g. shooting a portrait with the sun behind the subject - it might be easier to switch to spot metering and meter off the subject to ensure it's properly exposed. Of course, the highlights will probably over-expose then, but it's always a trade-off with difficult lighting scenarios. You can use spot for mixed bright / dark / mid-tone scenes too, by metering off a mid-tone area and using auto-exposure lock to hold the settings for the shot.
Camera exposure metering is quite clever, but not
that clever... There's still some reliance on the photographer to assess the scene and take appropriate action