Metering (1 Viewer)

Pretty basic question I suspect, but what metering mode is the best when shooting birds? I've a Canon 400D, so I don't have spot metering.

The main problem I have is when shooting birds in trees and undergrowth.

whomes said:

Pretty basic question I suspect, but what metering mode is the best when shooting birds? I've a Canon 400D, so I don't have spot metering.

The main problem I have is when shooting birds in trees and undergrowth.

Click to expand...

The matrix metering in most cameras is pretty good in most circumstances these days. However, you need to be aware of situations that will fool the meter, eg strong backlighting, snow/sand/water reflecting light, very light of dark plumage. In these circumstances, some exposure compensation will be required, eg in strong backlighting, the camera will expose for the background light, giving you a silhouetted subject. Therefore, to expose the subject correctly, dial in some overexposure - against a bright sky I would try 1-2stops.
Correct exposure is a difficult subject to explain briefly, so I'd recommend reading around it and experimenting a bit.

I'm using the Canon 20D which doesn't have spot metering - the nearest being centre-weighted which to be honest I find works just fine in most circumstances. For situations of strong backlighting or brightly lit subjects then I use the EV compensation. It's dead easy to adjust. It just takes a bit of practice/experience to gain a feel for the amount to use.

whomes said:

Pretty basic question I suspect, but what metering mode is the best when shooting birds? I've a Canon 400D, so I don't have spot metering.

The main problem I have is when shooting birds in trees and undergrowth.

Click to expand...

The problem with birds is that the subject is often relatively small in the view and surrounded by bright background (i.e. sky!). An ideal way around this is to take your meter reading from something nearby that seems to you to be lit similarly to the bird (you can use a grey scale card for this but the palm of your hand will do at a pinch).

Using, as has been suggested, centre-weighted metering (which is not so different from spot metering on the Canon, I should think) is a good idea, too. If there is a lot of contrast in the shot, as when shooting with lots of sky in view, you could also try adding in some exposure compensation of maybe +1 stop. More accurately, you could take a reading from the sky and then from something lit similarly to the bird will show you exactly how much compensation is needed.

I have a 350D (which I think has the same options as the 400D), I use partial metering - this uses the central 9% of the image so is as close to spot metering as the camera can go. I use exposure compensation all the time, mainly I dail in a slight underexposure (normally 2/3rds of a stop) to avoid blowing any highlights. If a bird is backligh I'll change this to an overexposure. It's well worth learning to alter exposure comp without taking your eye from the view finder.

I am not sure if this just a terminology thing, but my understanding of Canon metering is that Partial metering mode is closest to spot metering. It only uses the central part of the frame to calculate exposure (9% of the overall frame on a 20D).

Centre-weighted metering uses the entire frame but weights the exposure to the central portion of the frame (more than 9% though). I also believe that it 'expects' the top portion of the frame to be paler than the lower (i.e. sky and ground).

Evaluative metering (which I use for most of my non-flight bird photography) uses the entire scene and is pretty accurate when the subject is a decent size in the frame and well lit. I use this mode because my main subject is rarely in the centre of the frame, which it would need to be with the other metering modes, when using an automated exposure program such as AV (aperature priority) or TV (shutter speed priority).

I always use partial metering for bird shots on the 350D - covers the central 9% of the frame, If the bird is big enough in the frame then it is very accurate - even if it covers less than 9% of the frame it works out better than centre weighted IMO.