This morning I met long time DSLR Photography Lesson student Stacy in Crescent Lake Park, where I knew it was very likely we would be able to photograph a goose or two. I suggested she bring a blanket so that she could lie down comfortably on the grass in order to be able to get at eye level to the birds. I got down low myself for the shot above.
In this lesson I pointed out even more to Stacy that the meter gives just a suggestion, as to get a good exposure of the geese in the deep shade they were standing in, it was necessary to use settings that the meter thought would result in an overexposed shot. That was mostly due to the background being much brighter than the foreground. Also, I recommended that there is no need to change aperture to fix the exposure. The aperture should be set first (when shooting in manual mode) so to set the depth of field, and then the shutter speed should be set as needed to get the desired exposure.