metering mode?

[astjitters]

Lately I've been starting to get recruited for photographing people...portraits and such.

I'm wondering what type of metering mode most people use? I would assume 'spot', but how does spot metering work when your subject is off-center?

Sorry if this seems elementary to most, though most of the time I've left my camera in evaluative but what to take it up a notch and have it where it should be.

Thanks

[candleman]

spot and CWA is what i use.. almost never use Matrix/Pattern

when its not centered..
if you are shooting aperture priority.. just ude the exposure lock button, then recompose and focus.
OR
when in manual mode... just dial in the settings whilst metering off the face and recompose/focus

[Emily4Pres]

You could also change the AF Point Selection (newbie here, still learning the ins and outs!), on my cannon I usually have it set to the center but if you want off center focus you could set it to one of the side points...am I making any sense here? Please correct the verbage if needed!

[candleman]

Originally Posted by Emily4Pres

You could also change the AF Point Selection (newbie here, still learning the ins and outs!), on my cannon I usually have it set to the center but if you want off center focus you could set it to one of the side points...am I making any sense here? Please correct the verbage if needed!

the metering spot is not the same as the AF point


when moving the AF point in SPOT metering.. the camera still meters using the centrew of the frame.

(metering is how it reads the amount of light coming in... different to focus )

[teaking]

I think everyone is right with spot meetering but I would go as far to say go to manual mode then you can use the focus lock trick as from what I have read re composing your shot gives better sharpnes than using one of the other focus points.

I suppose the trick is learning skin tones, then using the spot meetering to expose for your shot so you could set your f-stop for your depth of field then use the ISO and shutter speed to expose for your shot for example if there white like my self I would be about a +1 if I was spot meetered off of.

[astjitters]

candleman -

thanks for your reply. i referred to my manual on the AE lock ,which what I'm assuming is what you're talking about. by reading the three steps they list there, seems to be a simple concept: focus the subjectt with the exposure reading displayed. press my (*) button (i have a canon), which should lock the auto exposure setting. then i can recompose and take the picture. to maintain the AE lock when taking more shots, it says that i need to hold down the (*) button & press the shutter button to shoot (I'll have to try this.)

but the confusing part then would be the table they list at the bottom of that page titled "AE lock effects" which shows the metering mode and the AF point selection method, and specifies where the AE lock is. SO, when in spot metering, according to the table, the AE lock is applied at the ceter AF point. WHHHHAT? This confuses things as i had thought from reading the above that I could fix this?

Thoughts on this? Sorry for such a newbie question ... Thanks for the help

[kencaleno]

The time-honored method of metering for portraits has always been center-weighted.Studio photographers still use this mode nowadays. Ken

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

The time-honored method of metering for portraits has always been center-weighted.Studio photographers still use this mode nowadays. Ken

Perhaps, but why then do most tutorials recommend spot-metering off a highlight for glamour shooting?

[astjitters]

To add onto my question, do you all always use spot/center-weighted when you are photographing moving children/families that may not be centered in the frame? this seems like it would be difficult?

[TAGfan]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Perhaps, but why then do most tutorials recommend spot-metering off a highlight for glamour shooting?

I also wonder about the answer to this question....