Mastering the Nikon D300

2.2. 3D Color Matrix II Meter

The Nikon D300's Matrix metering mode is actually the 3D Color Matrix II metering system, one of the most powerful and accurate automatic exposure meters in any camera today (Figure 2).

There are characteristics for many thousands of images stored in the camera. These characteristics 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 exposures for the large 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 ...