Closest thing to spot metering

[snevs]

Hi,

I just finished reading "Understanding Exposure" and I enjoyed it a lot. I'm wondering about one thing though.

He writes about metering from the sky etc (something I couldn't check out so far.. no blue sky whatsoever in the past :( ), using the built-in spot meter. My 20d doesn't have such a thing. Which is closest to spot metering...? Center? Partial?

Also it would be nice to hear if the descriped techniques can be applied 1:1 on digital cameras, since I had more the feeling he's more writing about film cameras.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

[cdifoto]

I think Partial comes closest but if you can get the sky to fill the entire frame or nearly so, any metering mode will work.

[Hermeto]

On 20D Partial (9%) is closest to Spot (3.5%) metering.

Pretty much everything Peterson writes about film cameras is the same with digital, except apertures..
He uses much smaller f/numbers in his examples..

[snevs]

Thanks CDIFOTO.

On 20D Partial (9%) is closest to Spot (3.5%) metering.

Pretty much everything Peterson writes about film cameras is the same with digital, except apertures..
He uses much smaller f/numbers in his examples..

Thanks. Does that mean, that for example his "Storytelling Aperture" of f/22 would be more, say like f/16?

[DrPablo]

Use the longest telephoto you have and meter through it. That will be a sort of "poor man's" spot meter.


Pretty much everything Peterson writes about film cameras is the same with digital, except apertures..

He uses much smaller f/numbers in his examples..

Smaller f/numbers than what? The lenses have the same properties, and in many cases are the same lenses. The only tiny difference between 35mm film and digital is that a lens will become diffraction-limited sooner on APS-C than on full frame or 35mm. But this is worlds different than 35mm versus large format -- I mean I shoot f/90 and f/128 on large format without diffraction being a problem.