What metering mode do you use?

[Keiffer]

Hey guys, was just curious to what metering modes you guys normally use and if you change modes, when and why?

[booggerg]

He meant metering mode, not the camera priority setting..

I use the one with the circle, without the dot in the middle.. whatever the hell that is called...

[tim]

Oops - deleted my earlier post.

I use all the metering modes, depending on the situation. I use partial if there's a lot of range in the image, or evaluative if I want to keep all the highlights. Centre weighted I only use if i'm in a hell of a hurry, like sometimes at a wedding when things are coming at you thick and fast.

[xryx]

Let's see if I can get this right.

Empty circle is center/partial (approx 9% "spot") metering
Filled in circle is evaluative
Empty, no circle, is center weighted average (sort of a hybrid of the above two)

Now this is how I remember it on my 20D but then again, my memory isn't all that good :)

Edit: Cause I didn't answer the original question
I generally use center metering unless the scene is very dynamic and I don't have a lot of time to "second guess" the camera. Truthfully, I've never played around with the center weighted average possibly because I began this adventure on an Elan IIe. Film was expensive and locking the eye control to the metering was possible (I'm fuzzy on this one).

[robertwgross]

About all I ever use would be evaluative and partial.

Most of the time, it is evaluative. Once in a while, if I have a wildlife subject way out there, I will take a long shot at it. I know that I am going to have to crop away the outer parts of the image anyway to get the good center, so I move the metering to partial so that it meters the good center only.

---Bob Gross---

[Mitcon]

I second what Bob said, for me mostly in evaluative and sometimes partial. I'm not sure that I have ever used centre weighted.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

for a long time I used Partial but till now I cant tell the difference between partial and evaluative.

[pvonk]

John Shaw (in Nature Photography Field Guide) advises : "My experience is that so long as the entire scene is within about a 1-stop range, evaluative metering does indeed work." On the whole, he does not use evaluative metering. He suggests a test: "go outside and meter snow. Pure white snow should be 2 stops open from medium, so meter it with a center-wieghted pattern and then flip your camera into to the evaluative pattern. Do the exposure values of the two metering systems agree? ... My experience is that evaluative metering tries to render snow about 1 stop lighter than medium." He goes on with other arugments against using evaluative metering.

However, note that his book discusses film photography, not digital. Would there be a difference?

[ohenry]

I use partial metering in most instances because I am more comfortable adjusting exposure when I know what I'm metering than I am with evaluative metering and trying to guess how the camera averages the scene.

[Transfix]

I shoot mostly sports and shoot evaluative metering on AV.

[Halliday]

Centerweighted most of the time, spot once in a while. Evaluative is too wonky for me. The only good evalutive mode I liked was back on my old EOS-1 :)

[nosquare2003]

I use the one with a dot only.

[Streetshooter]

Evalutive....never change from it......

[Keiffer]

Thanks guys for all of your input! You guys rock!
Tim.. Can you please clarify what you mean?
I use partial if there's a lot of range in the image, or evaluative if I want to keep all the highlights.

[Jon]

Thanks guys for all of your input! You guys rock!
Tim.. Can you please clarify what you mean?

I use partial if there's a lot of range in the image, or evaluative if I want to keep all the highlights.
If there are very bright and very dark areas in the scene, he'll use Partial, and meter the area he's most concerned about getting correctly exposed. If he's also worried about keeping highlights without blowing them out, he'll shift to Evaluative, which will try to accomodate the whole range of brightness/darkness in the scene.

[Keiffer]

Thanks for clearing that up Jon.