Metering With My 40D

Pardon me 'cause I'm a camera noob. I've been shooting for a little while, but I haven't read every word of the manual or learned all of the terms. I probably should.

No matter what lens I use, or what type of metering I select on the camera, I've noticed that when auto-focusing, the metering "square" that lights up is one of the upper ones just to the left of center, and it will want to focus there. It will do this whether or not I am following a moving subject (which means I'll either be in front or behind the subject if I am trying to frame the subject evenly. If I try to take a picture of your face, it'll meter and auto-focus on your right ear. Say I am panning from right to left and I'm trying to photograph a moving motorcycle, and I aim for the rider's head, I'll get metering a couple feet in front of the bike and rider making the image come out soft or worse.

What's going on?

It would be helpful if you told us what model camera you're dealing with.

SkipD wrote in post #9995460
It would be helpful if you told us what model camera you're dealing with.

My bad. I had 40D in the subject line, but meant to say Canon 40D.

I missed that in the subject line. Hopefully, someone who uses a 40D will be able to figure out what you need to do differently.

Are you talking about the auto focus point? That is different than metering. You can manually change the auto focus point by hitting the button next to the * button on the back and use the scrolling wheel to manually select the focus point.

Hmm, that is not metering but the focus point. It sounds like the focus point selected is not the one you want. To select the appropriate focusing point you press the button on the upper right rear of your camera and move that around with the multicontroller or the wheels depending on how it is set up. You sound like you should read the 40D manual, the section on selecting AF points will be most helpful to you.

hpulley wrote in post #9995524
Hmm, that is not metering but the focus point. It sounds like the focus point selected is not the one you want. To select the appropriate focusing point you press the button on the upper right rear of your camera and move that around with the multicontroller or the wheels depending on how it is set up. You sound like you should read the 40D manual, the section on selecting AF points will be most helpful to you.

You're right, I should. I guess one reason I asked is because I didn't make this change on purpose, it must have been accidental, thus I didn't know what to look for or how to change it back, if it was something that can be changed.

I'll play with it tonight and see what I can learn.

Thanks!

Racer997,

The AF point/s the camera uses is selected by you, the user. With the camera turned on, press the AF Point selection button (its a button on the farthest right on the back of the camera). Now turn the main dial until the AF point you want lights up.

At least my 30D works like that and I'm guessing the 40D is not very different.

You can also change the custom functions so that you can directly change the AF point using the joystick.

C.Fn III: Autofocus/Drive
option 3: AF Point selection method
1: multi-controller direct.

Makes changing the AF point as simple as playing Pac-Man, but getting the corners/diagonals can be a bit tricky sometimes in portrait orientation.

Metering = sampling a portion of the frame for the exposure value and the camera sets the appropriate parameters to get a good exposure

focus point= phase detection sensors sample a point/spot of the frame for contrast and drive the lens until focus is achieved.

Yes, and the camera always meters from the center. you only changed the focus point, not the metering.

That's actually a question I had - don't the 1 series and the 7D and them map the metering to the active AF point.

In evaluative mode it does bias the metering for the selected point but not for spot, partial or center weighted.

Only the 1 series can map spot metering to AF points. The rest will use the AF point in the evaluative metering algorithm only.

Racer997 wrote in post #9995427
...but I haven't read every word of the manual or learned all of the terms. I probably should.

Yep, Go back and read the manual