Metering modes on 10D/20D

[OviV]

Can someone give me a little primer of which should be used under different shooting conditions? For example, outdoors with shadows, indoor with flash, etc.

Thank you,
Ovi

[scottbergerphoto]

This is very simplified but:
1. Tv-sports, fast action, need to freeze movement.
2. Av-portraiture, cluttered background, need to isolate the subject and blur the background.
3. M- most control. When you have the time to carefully think about each shot and how you want to expose it. Also, the preferred method for flash photography by many Canon pros because there is not automatic flash fill reduction. I find that I am using M Mode most of the time unless I am doing fast action shots.

A note about uneven lighting. When you are in a situation with alot of variation in lighting, it is important to decide what is the most important element in a picture and use your camera's spot/partial meter or a hand held spotmeter to nail the exposure.
Scott

[hmhm]

3. M- most control. When you have the time to carefully think about each shot and how you want to expose it.

I'd add that M mode is also useful when you don't have time to think about each shot. In particular, if you're in a situation where the luminosity of light is not changing much, but for some reason you're shooting a subject that has a tendency to "fool" your metering in inconsistent ways, such that you're constantly adjusting exposure compensation to get the right exposure, then you may want to use the histogram to find a good exposure by trial and error, then reuse that aperture/shutter combination for subsequent shots without giving the metering system a chance to second-guess it.

It's so simple, that sometimes it can be overlooked, but if the brightness of the light isn't changing, and outdoors it doesn't change all that quickly except at sunrise and sunset, then your exposure doesn't need to be changing from shot to shot.
-harry

[OviV]

I'm sorry folks, I misstated what I wanted to know. I am talking about the metering modes available (i.e. Evaluative, Partial, Center-Weighted). I had no control over these on my DRebel so I am new to this feature.

Thanks,
Ovi

[OviV]

Bump

[phili1]

I use Partial when the sun is behind my subject and evaluative the rest of the time. Some times I use my Sekonic and take multiple readings. I never have used center waited.

Partial is good for fast moveing sports as well.

[RDKirk]

>>I'm sorry folks, I misstated what I wanted to know. I am talking about the metering modes available (i.e. Evaluative, Partial, Center-Weighted). I had no control over these on my DRebel so I am new to this feature.
<<

Partial metering makes a reading sharply from the central clear circle you see in the middle of the screen (the only difference between partial area metering and spot metering is the size of the spot). It will give you a setting that will reproduce the tone you're metering as a middle gray (peaking in the middle of the histogram). If you measure a white wall, the given settings will reproduce the wall as middle gray. If you measure a black wall, the given settings will reproduce as middle gray. Obviously, the given settings will be accurate only if you're metering a tone that actually is a middle tone. Otherwise, you have to compensate the settings. Obviously, you have to know how. Take a look at the Zone System for one of the easiest ways to learn what a meter does.

However, it just so happens that most landscape scenes just happen to average out to middle gray, and partial meter patterns take in enough area to take advantage of that happy fact. So in the hands of a newbie, partial metering gets a few more lucky exposures than a tight spot meter.

Centerweigted meter patterns measure the entire viewscreen, but they give extra weight to the central portion. That tends to prevent the sky in landscapes from throwing off the reading. It was the best thing before evaluative metering for people who didn't know how to use a plain meter well. Centerweighted metering has the disadvantage for a knowledgeable photographer of not precisely identifying exactly how much it's being influenced by different parts of the screen. For newbies, it's been obsoleted by evaluative metering.

Evaluative metering (Nikon calls it "matrix" metering) is a completely different animal. The camera measures numerous sections of the screen, calculates an algorithmic pattern, then compares that pattern to thousands of patterns in its database developed from photographs (Nikon claims 90,000 patterns). It works like IBM's chess-playing Big Blue, scanning the scene and comparing it to a database. When it finds a match, it selects the exposure to produce a similar image. It works quite well, but can be fooled when the photographer actually wants an "incorrect" exposure.

[phili1]

Ok I answered your original.

Partial is a good mode to use under different lighting conditions. If you have a subjet with the sun behind them partial will take a reading of the subject and not the sun, or if some one is in a dooe way and the background is shadowed you want to expose for the subject hence you use partial. Or if you are doing a scenery you might want to use partial and meter four different ares and average the exposure to give you a certain look you want.

Evaluative takes everything into consideration. If I am shooting sports I want an overall metering of the area but if I want to key in on the quartebacks face then I will switch to partial. In most cases Evaluative is the best to use.

I never use center but I guess you could use it in a sporting type situation.

I have a hand meter and I use it for portraits and landscapes. It has a 5%spot and I will meter and put it into memory, it will show me the entire lighting range. Now like film the sensor can only capture a certain f stop range, you have to decide which end you want to loose it.