Glossary

Reflected light

Light that has bounced off your subject and traveled back to the meter or camera.

All camera-based meters are reflective: they read the light coming back from the scene through the lens. Reflective metering is convenient but can be fooled by very bright or very dark subjects. A black cat in shadow and a white cat in snow both reflect different amounts of light, but a reflective meter would call them both 'middle grey'. Use spot, multi-spot, or compensation to handle this.