Metering Mode

[aroy]

I started with Centre Weighed, but now without flash I use spot and meter for the brighter part. With Flash, if it is a bird, then spot (to give it more light), else matrix.

In dim light, I find spot metering better. For example metering on a candle, gets the flame right, but if I use matrix, then the flame is blown out. Similarly if the subject is in shadow and there is bright ambient light, spot metering gets the subject right. In such case, let the sky get blown.

 

[WayneF]

Does anyone use just "my hunch" metering?

Just two days ago I shot all day without metering at all. I just set my desired aperture (for dof) and shutter speed (motion blur) and fired away over 400 shots. The weather changed from rain to sunshine but "my hunch metering" was pretty accurate. None of the shots went to trash bin because of inaccurate metering/exposure (for other reasons though yes).

In the film days using negative film the hunch metering was almost foolproof. With digital the tolerance is lower and errors happen. And I would not have shot slides without metering, definitely not.

But this is a hobby for me not a job, so the enjoyment is in the path, not at the destination.

It is called experience I guess. Should be about like last time in same situation, at least for sunlight. Sunny 16 worked well for negative film, and was easily memorized. In the days before light meters, it was all we had, other than bracketing (Opinion, but bracketing makes little sense today, when we can already see the result immediately).

But digital is harder, and exact situations are hard to judge within a third stop for digital. Raw can be corrected over a range of underexposure, but overexposure of digital is a serious flaw, and JPG needs to be closer too.

Negative B&W film was extremely accepting of overexposure. Digital is not. For negatives, we said "expose for the shadows", meaning give it plenty of exposure, intentional overexposure of the highlights is of less concern. Until 1960 (semiconductor meters becoming popular, even beginning to be built into cameras), Kodak intentionally published their B&W negative ASA speed ratings divided by 2 to help insure this happened (greater safety factor for shadows). Negatives have wide latitude, easily corrected in the the darkroom. But digital is a different story, does not and is not. Digital has to expose for the highlights. A light meter is a pretty handy tool.