-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Spot metering cluelessness. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter steveo
- Start date
gmax
Sontium Dweller
I have my Canon eos 30d set on manual mode which is working out great. I also have it set to spot metering, what is that? Go easy on me.BB
Hello Steveo,
a quick answer as a starter (ignore steps you already know).
1. Exposure is the determination of the amount of light to reach the film/sensor in order to produce a correct image.
2. You get a correctly exposed image when the exact amount of light has entered the camera.
3. To determine a subject exposure a camera may use different metering systems (usually matrix or evaluative, centre-weighted, partial and spot ).
4. Spot metering allows you to measure the subject in the centre of the frame (or on some cameras at the selected AF point). Only a small area of the whole frame is metered and the exposure of the rest of the frame is ignored.
On a Canon 30D, for example, partial is roughly 9% at centre, while spot is 3.4% at centre.
5. You may want to use this type of metering when you want to measure for example a strongly backlit subject, or to avoid burning whites on a close subject, or when certain parts of the shot are going to be either over-exposed or underexposed: in general, spot metering allows you to be more precise when measuring your exposure.
Hope it helps,
Max
PS If you need some further info, do a Google search for "exposure" or "metering system", but I'm sure others will add their comments here
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
No need to add anything, Max - that's a very good explanation.
Excellent explanation from Max. I find spot metering most useful when a small subject contrasts strongly with the rest of the scene, eg birds on water or against the sky. That way the subject stands a better chance of being correctly exposed.
When the light is particularly difficult, you can use spot metering to set exposure on manual mode for a suitably lit midtone, then recompose with the exposure already set. (I use spot metering for this because it meters only a small area of the scene, so I know I have used the midtone I meant to!)
When the light is particularly difficult, you can use spot metering to set exposure on manual mode for a suitably lit midtone, then recompose with the exposure already set. (I use spot metering for this because it meters only a small area of the scene, so I know I have used the midtone I meant to!)
