when I shoot single point-what should

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Daz

Senior Member
I use single point on both focusing and metering...

I use single point on Focus because it doesnt matter if it is a Person or a Bird or an F1 car ... I want the eye on a person or bird in focus and the head of a car, I can get that more with single point than the camera determining on auto.

I use single point on Metering as I can quickly move my focus point to the brightest part of the scene and it will tell me the exposure on the meter, I can then change it very quickly and get back to shooting :)
 
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aroy

Senior Member
To answer your question if you want precise focus where you want and perfect exposure of the object you are focusing at, use Single Point AF with Single Point Metering.

I also use Single point Focus and Single point Metering. If I am not wrong with single point, the metering will be at the focus point and that is what I usually want. It is only when I use flash at short to medium distance that I use Matrix metering (where it acts as a fill flash), as with single point the flash will be in TTL mode which is much more power than I want at these distances when shooting in good light. For shooting birds, where a lot of light is required (unless the bird is in the sun) TTL works the best.
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
aroy said:
To answer your question if you want precise focus where you want and perfect exposure of the object you are focusing at, use Single Point AF with Single Point Metering.

I also use Single point Focus and Single point Metering. If I am not wrong with single point, the metering will be at the focus point and that is what I usually want. It is only when I use flash at short to medium distance that I use Matrix metering (where it acts as a fill flash), as with single point the flash will be in TTL mode which is much more power than I want at these distances when shooting in good light. For shooting birds, where a lot of light is required (unless the bird is in the sun) TTL works the best.
Click to expand...

Your use of Single Point Metering term appears to be what the camera manual calls Spot Metering. Spot Metering is metered at the movable Single Focus Point, and it does shift flash mode from TTL BL to TTL (TTL flash mode can be useful indoors when the ambient metering is dim and underexposed). However, Matrix and Center Weighted metering will still have their own rules regarding wider frame area, regardless of where the focus point is.

The problem with Spot metering is that it can serve special purposes, but for general use, it simply does not represent the frame area. Spot metering does NOT mean the spot is "correctly" exposed, it is reflective metering which means the spot should come out middle tone, regardless if that means correct or not. Then light or dark colored subjects will simply be wrong as middle tone. Spot metering requires much more thinking that does Matrix or Center Weighted.
 
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