Thread: Question re metering

I have been using spot metering in an effort to improve my exposure in different environments.

This is most likely a really stupid question, but I'll ask anyway. When you are shooting in a variable environment, say for example outdoors as oposed to indoor portrait with static light conditions, how do you manage your exposure?

My canon spot meters from the center focus point. If my subject is anywhere but centre, I meter for them then recompose. This means tht exposure often reads as over or underexposed once I recompose. Obviously, I ignore this as I have metered from my subect which is no longer at centre. But what happens if I am moving around taking the shots? If I have to remeter then recompose the shot repeatedly I am going to end up missing a whole lot of shots. Do I set and leave provided I don't change position / direction significantly?

What do you do?

It's always good to meter again if you move spots, or if a cloud comes through or something.

How do you like spot metering? Once I switched over to that, I felt like I was much more consistent with my exposure, and I rarely switch from it now

Thanks Steph. I prefer spot metering at the moment, especially as I've been doing a bit more backlighting. Or trying to at least. The only thing that frustrates me is having to remeter and recompose as I feel like by the time I have done that I am losing some of the moments. I've been using BBF and it would be awesome if you could chose to meter from the selected focus point. My canon can't, though I think I remember reading some Nikons can

I don't use anything but spot metering now. I made the switch for good probably 2 years ago now. I haven't learned to BBF yet but I want to. I haven't felt like I have lost moments by re-metering, it works pretty fast....

Ya, spot metering here too.

Thanks ladies. I'll have to work at getting quicker