Spot Metering

[RLJSlick]

Hi guys, I had a chance to spot meter a bunch of shots this weekend, and I really enjoy using it, I wanted to hear from you guys how often do you guys use spot metering, and when do you use it? I really like to your input.

[Rudi]

Only use it when I'm shooting severely backlit portraits or similar. I find that the 5D meters really well otherwise, just by using "Centre-weighted" metering. But, it's good to have "Spot"! :D

[Wulff]

I spot meter around 99% of the time trying to employ what amounts to todays "zone metering system". If I cant find anything thats near to grey then I go up the scale and will on occassion meter off my hand. Ghetto incident metering and really only doable with spot.

[RLJSlick]

Thats interesting, do you ever meter off a person face if you are taking a portrait?

[Wulff]

Right now Im about 90-95% wildlife, the rest landscape. Both of which lend themselves to zone metering as long as the lighting is constant. For portraits/people etc Id likely use evaluative more but would still probably experiment with using the spot meter on something close to grey if not an actual card. One day I may/most likely will use an incident meter the majority of the time but untill I shell out for the zoen method seems to work.

[Keith]

rarely use it, only in extreme lighting.....centred weighting or matrix

[bobber]

Almost always spot meter,but I shoot just about everything on manual...when I shoot auto,I'll switch to average in some cases when the lighting changes alot such as sports!

[davespix]

I rarely use it any more but portrait off the face yes, now with external flash meter it rarely gets used. Obviously sports is different wildlife and other light situations, call for different ways. My DR range is not great on my cheapo camera so it can be drastic. Though the d70s is quite accurate.
I would say spot helps me meter for a good manual exposure, checking my dark and light differences.

[Paul S]

Metering? What's that? :confused_1:

Seriously, in these days of digital, I don't think metering is something to worry about. I shoot my first shot at what the camera recommends (using the evaluative metering, but the mode doesn't really matter) and look at the histogram. I then make adjustments based on the histogram. The meter is just a starting point.

-Paul

[Kevin]

I suppose it depends on what you're shooting. I've found that I can't use evaluative (or full viewfinder) metering when shooting certain situations, like a white bird in a scene. I typically use partial but treat it like spot. I look at a particular part of the scene and determine where I want that to fall between black and white, meter off of that and adjust until the meter indicator is where I want it. Works pretty well for me.

I've been meaning to switch to spot metering but haven't taken the time to change.

Shooting portraits indoors is a different metering process, but I'd do basically the same thing as mentioned above if I were shooting a location portrait outdoors.