[stupot]

I've had my 30D now for just over a year and pretty oufait with most of the controls but have never really ventured to far with the metering modes i have it stuck in 'evalutive metering' for 95% of the time with a couple of occaisions when i used spot meteing.

I guess i'm not 100% sure what metering problem each modes meant to overcome, i understand spot metering can be very usefull in high contrast situations but what about the others. So what do you use yours for?

The 30D has

• Evalutive
• Partial
• Spot
• Center-weighted

Cheers

[Markulous]

Must admit that I tend to stick it on '8 segment' most of the time - and use exposure compensation from there. Do tend to change to 'Center-area' when doing a photocall. Not had 'Spot' so never missed it - and don't do studio shots where I could see it's potential usefulness

[silkstone]

Partial is useful if there are, for example, very bright or dark objects towards the outside of the frame, which you want to ignore for metering purposes. Centre weighted is what most people used before the fancy evaluative systems came along, and generally gives good results - evaluative usually pays more attention to the metering at the focus point(s).

Spot metering is useful as a check in situations of high contrast - e.g. white dress and black suit. I sometimes use it almost as a light-meter to guesstimate the right manual exposure.

Mostly I stick to evaluative or manual - take a test shot, look at the histogram and adjust accordingly. At the end of the day, all the fancy metering systems just select one shutter speed and one aperture setting for the whole shot.

[Ali]

I've only used Evaulative and Partial (canon 20d). I don't really understand the Centre Weighted Average setting.

Am I right in thinking that "Partial" on the Canon is the same as "Centre Weighted" on the Nikon, ie. the 9-11% of the viewfinder (in the centre)? So Centre Weighted Average on the Canon isn't really Centre Weighted - it calculates an average?

[simpbow]

I use centre weighted & manual all of the time because of using filters, i take it thats right.