It should be noted WHY exposure changes when you meter off of different areas or items in the frame. When it meters, the camera is trying to determine what a neutral tone is (which allows it to set the appropriate shutter speed/aperture in automated settings).

The snowy scene is a perfect example of how the spot meter is underexposing everything when it's reading the snow. It decides the snow is a neutral gray tone, when in reality we know it's white. So if the camera is rendering white snow (the brightest tone in the scene) as a medium gray, that means everything else is going to be that much darker as well.

I'd go on, but I have a feeling some stuff related to this is going to be covered in the next article. I will mention that it's always good to look for a nice medium tone in your scene (greens are great... e.g., pine trees) to spot meter off of in order to set an exposure.

Max

PS - Don't worry, I won't tell you about my book.

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