Spot meters

Thanks Dave.
Yes, I should try more with Sunny f/16 by 1/ISO. When too far for fill flash, or it's distracting, shadow detail in a face under cap is sacrificed. Ugly, but sacrificed.
I agreed with posters to Oleg: a reflected spot meter is not best for on-the-go photog. Mastering the reflected partial meter in the camera is.
I never had as much trouble metering shooting slides for 30 years as I do with Canon 10D. For the bass tournement, Fuji Astia slide film does an nice job tolerating extreme contrast. Kodachrome does amazing things. As amateur, most of my photog is outdoor candids. I'm not quitting film yet. People who say metering digital is intolerantly similar to slides are either avid landscape photogs, who exert much time on single shots, or are people who have not shot a lot of slides. I find slide film much more tolerant than digital.
Also, was pointing out to Oleg my experience that handheld viewfinder spot meters are better used on distant objects that do not move (landscapes).

Response to Oleg... rather than worry about hand held spot meter, check out Norman Koran on implementing zone thinking for digital at:
http://www.normankoren​.com/zonesystem.html
http://www.normankoren​.com/digital_tonality.​html

Dave:
You mention using 10D partial then checking histogram. I've been fooled, duped, by this. There are outdoor scenes, e.g., strongly sun backlit female face in shadows, where my post shot histogram of the "whole scene" looks balanced and fine across the spectrum on camera LCD, but when opened in PSCS Raw, the face is underexposed (even with some fill flash) by a whole stop+.
The test I use on faces is the quick PS "face histogram" technique for portrait photography recommended on smartshooter.com.
To master this challenge, I'm trying P.K. Frary's E-TTL technique of:
1. turn off flash; 2. meter the scene; 3. Set f and shutter in manual mode; 4. turn on flash and fire ignoring the 10D meter.
It works better, but then the subject... she's walked off......
Jack

I'm just jumping in here, but am I the only one around here who uses an 18% card in tough lighting situations? I think it's a really handy tool and a lot cheaper than a light meter

If I need to spot meter I'll simply fill the frame with my subject in Av or Tv mode, remember the settings and pop over to M mode duplicating those settings. It's worked well for me in highly backlit situations where the camera's meter would have underexposed the subject.

I'm certainly no professional, but for $5 I've been able to handle most nasty situations with the grey card and cameras metering using a manual spot meter process. The grey card is definitely handy when shooting high contrast situations (like a wedding dress next to a black tux)

Or so goes my experience!

Adam

Adam:
Yes, gray card, palm of hand, green grass, etc. work when the light falling around me is similar to the light intensity and contrast range of light falling around subject.
The spot meter challenge is when the the subject is some distance, and under different, more complex light and shadow. It's a challenge.

J

I can see that it would certainly be a challenge then. I suppose all you can do in that situation is bracket bracket bracket