10D's Lack of True \"Spot\" metering is a real pai

[CyberDyneSystems]

Maybe there is some enlightenment that can be offered to this newbie.

The Spot metering on my Olympus Digital was excellent, and was something I grew to rely on heavily. I like to take pictures of wildlife.

Birds in flight is my particular problem with the 10D. Against a bright sky the "Centerweighted" metering is still pretty useless. The bird is allways a dark shadow against the bright sky. Doesn't matter what the weather is,. even grey cloudy days the sky is way too bright and the bird is a shadow. (I exagerate a little,. but the birds loose all detail)

Since by nature these are pics taken on the fly,. is there anything I can do?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Partial metering will give a reading from a smaller area than centre-weighted, but I doubt, if it will fully cure your problem. Depending what mode you are shooting in, you could dial in 1-2 stops of exposure compensation or just over-expose manually.

Regards,

Roger

[cowman345]

I'm certainly not an expert and perhaps someone can correct me if I'm wrong but this is how I view your dillemma:

Seems you're shooting under generally stable lighting conditions for the most part (when you speak of shooting birds against sky.)

Can't you just meter off a gray card and manually set exposure to utilize a fast shutter speed? That way all your shots will be nearly perfect in exposure. If you change lighting conditions, meter off the card again.

Coming from a Minolta DiMage 7i, I miss spot metering too, but there are ways around it... if anyone else has some suggestions, i'm dying to hear them!

-dave-

[justme_dc]

The camera can't be taught so you'll have to do the learning. If you know that when you are shooting birds in the sky the camera under exposes the bird then set the camera to overexpose by enough to give you the detail you are trying to get. I would guess about a stop and a half on the plus side will do ya. Shooting birds in the sky will almost always be somewhat problematic due to strong backlighting from the large, directional thermonuclear light source we all use. Once you learn what confuses the camera you'll be better able to predict what adjustments, if any you need to make.


Good luck to you!

[brault]

I have only taken a few bird pictures with my 10d, but I did not have a problem using evaluative metering.

Frank B

[Ken Fong]

I can use some experienced advice here for a potential purchase...

So given the 10D's lack of spot and multi-metering, I have the option of using an inexpensive gray card with the 10D's autobracketing turned on, or a more expensive dedicated spot meter (like a Sekonic) to meter and average zones to find an exact exposure (might as well have autobracketing turned on also.) For a novice user like myself, will I appreciate (notice) what the dedicated spot meter offers? Will I appreciate the meter as I become more experienced, or will the gray card still be the better value? If you recommend the dedicated spot meter, which brand/model?

(Of course, it seems like only the gray card would work better for the flying bird situation.)

Any advice appreciated.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Ken,

My problem was where I was trying to catrch a photo on the "fly" :) with no time to catch the action and set the camera at once. I was griping,. but it was at least half my inability to do too much at once in a short amount of time.

Justme_DC had a good read on it.

I am getting used to it however. The "Partial metering" setting is what I was using (i mistakenly refered to it as the center weighted)

But allready the results I am getting are better. I am now fast enough that I can "roll the exposure" a little towards overexposing if I think that the background will be too bright. It is mostly a matter of getting to know the camera. Actually getting familiar enough to know when it will cause a problem and knowing how to compensate.

It was just "different" from my old camera which had a lot of weeknesses,. spot metering just was not one of them.

CDS :)