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	Introduction
	Body & Lenses
	Built-in flash
	Autofocus
»	Metering systems
	Camera controls
	Controls - continued
	CSM - Custom settings
	Detailed images

In the old days, we were limited to an averaging meter that averaged the exposure, and hopefully gave a nice average picture. Most photography courses and books were designed around how to know when the camera's metering system would provide an inaccurate exposure, and how to compensate accordingly.

If we were shooting pictures in abnormal light conditions, such as snow, or darkness, or backlighting, and if we didn't learn to compensate, our cameras would happily under or overexpose our pictures.
 

Nikon N80 three metering modes with adjustment ring set to Matrix .

How many of us have an old shoe box with pictures that we couldn't bear to throw away, but were exposed so badly that we were embarrassed to show them to others? With the N80, those days are over. It is, in fact, hard to make a bad exposure with this little jewel of a camera. You can do it, but you have to work at it, not the other way around. The N80 actually has three light metering systems built into it. These are: a "3D Matrix" meter, an "Averaging Center-weighted" meter, and a "spot" meter.

The "3D Matrix" meter mode in today's Nikon cameras is world renowned for its accuracy and flexibility. In fact, Nikon worked with some of the world's best photographers in designing the matrix metering system. In the N80, through complex mathematical formulas, there are characteristics for over 30,000 professional images stored in the camera. These images are used, along with proprietary Nikon software and complex evaluative computations, to analyze the image appearing in your viewfinder. The meter is then set to provide very accurate exposure for the greatest majority of your images. A simple example of this might be a picture where the horizon runs through the middle of the image. The sky above is bright, and the earth below is much dimmer. By evaluating this image, and comparing it to hundreds of like images in the camera's database, an accurate meter setting is automatically input for you. It is incredibly accurate! 

In extremely bright situations, such as sunlit snow, it may be necessary to add a little bit of extra exposure time, since the meter does not take into account the color of the snow, like the Nikon F5 does with it's RGB meter. It will slightly underexpose extremely bright scenes with a lot of white. In my experience, it is good to add an additional 1/2 stop of exposure. In 98% of the images though, it performs better than any other camera brand. Test your N80 well, and learn where you need to help it a bit, and you'll have excellent pictures virtually all the time!

The "Averaging Center-weighted" meter mode is there for those who want to work with the older style of an averaging meter. In this type of metering, the entire image area is measured. 75% of the sensitivity of the meter is concentrated inside the 12mm circle in the middle of the focusing screen. The other 25% is layered out toward the edges of the focusing screen. Since this is an averaging meter setting, you must be aware of the consequences of paying no attention to the subject's color and brightness level. In this mode the meter will attempt to average all images to 18% gray. That means that close-up whites will not be quite white, and blacks will not be quite black. 

It is not recommended that this mode be used by point and shooters, since some human thought must be put into the brightness, contrast, and color of the image. Many of us cut our teeth on this type of metering system, so it is second nature. It will perform well with average scenes such as a landscape or group picture of people. But, when you start shooting snow scenes, if you don't add one or two stops of extra exposure, you will have 18% gray snow. And, if you are shooting that big black steam train up close, it will be a big 18% gray steam train instead. Don't be discouraged, though, about this meter mode. The flexibility inherent in the N80 allows photographers with different experience levels to use the camera effectively. 

The "Spot" meter mode of the N80 is similar to the Averaging Center-weighted mode. Instead of a 12mm circle providing 75% of the metering, a smaller 4mm area in the center of the focusing screen provides 100% of the metering. This "1%" spot meter allows the photographer to selectively meter very specific areas of the subject, such as a particular face in the crowd, or a group of trees in the forest. This metering mode is still an averaging mode, so it requires thought as to the brightness, contrast and color of the subject within the 4mm spot. 

This mode is best left to experienced photographers that want to manually meter areas of the scene, while figuring ranges of light values and film capability. This is useful for the famous "Zone System" created by world-renowned photographer Ansel Adams. There is no actual 4mm circle on the N80's focusing screen. The "1%" spot meter actually reads its values from the same area as the autofocus sensor in use. So, you can move the spot meter around on the focus screen by using the thumb rocker switch to move between autofocus sensors. In effect, you have five separate spot meters available according to where your subject is in on the focusing screen. Neat, huh?