Spot the Difference

[pinoy1979m]

hi. i am just wondering.

i recently bought a canon xti, and i noticed some reviews says its good but it does not have a spot meterring.

what is this spot meterring?

[pup]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metering_mode

That might help

[-MasterChief-]

kababayan! spot metering only meters 3% of the center area of the viewfinder, whereas partial meters 9% of the center area. evaluative takes an average meter from all the focus points while center weighted meters whatever is inside the circle on the viewfinder. hope this helps!

[pinoy1979m]

kababayan! spot metering only meters 3% of the center area of the viewfinder, whereas partial meters 9% of the center area. evaluative takes an average meter from all the focus points while center weighted meters whatever is inside the circle on the viewfinder. hope this helps!

hi. are you in the philippines?

i mean. whats the fuss with spot metering with some professional photographers?

[pinoy1979m]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metering_mode

That might help

thanks. it helpd. cheers!

[-MasterChief-]

no, im in the states kabayan. spot metering allows you to accurately meter different points of a scene. or if you only want to expose a single subject and disregard the rest of the scene. as for me, evaluative is so damn good that i rarely use spot metering. the few times that ive used it, for example: i take readings from different areas in a room to average, and then switch to manual mode.

[RgB]

You'll definitely need it when your background is brighter than your subject. Otherwise your subject will be underexposed.

[Hermeto]

You'll definitely need it when your background is brighter than your subject. Otherwise your subject will be underexposed.

And when it is opposite, background darker than the subject, you don’t?

Spot mettering is needed whenever there is a big difference in lighting between the subject and background.
What is brighter, what is darker, really doesn’t matter.

[cloose]

Spot metering is not NEEDED. Sure, it can be a useful feature, but to state that one cannot take a properly exposed picture without it is just plain wrong.

The final post on the below thread demonstrates the actual difference between what Canon calls "spot" and "partial"

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=250903&page=2

[e r y k]

if the 9% and the 3% really bothers you, zoom in on the place where you want to focus, and then zoom out, thus making your "spot" more accurate.

[pinoy1979m]

okay. thanks.

just wondering. whats with fixed apperture in standard zoom lens? what is it for?

[e r y k]

when you look at some lenses like the kit lens, it will say 18-55 then f/3.5-4.5 which relates to the aperture. at fully wide 18mm the biggest aperture would be 3.5, and at full telephoto (zoomed in) the aperture would be at the lowest 4.5.

with a fixed aperture in a zoom lens, it would stay the same throughout the whole focal range. however fixed aperture lenses are usually more expensive.