"Evaluative metering. The standard metering mode; the 7D attempts to intelligently
classify your image and choose the best exposure based on readings from 63
different zones in the frame, with emphasis on the autofocus points." BUT...

how many times I have been "caught out" with the single focus point hitting either a very bright spot on a race car or a very dark spot and the end result exposure is either very dark or over exposed. Any advice on how to avoid this. Happens a lot when tracking a car in AI Servo mode and inevitably it is the "Money shot" that is affected.

Hi Ralph, getting proper, consistent frame to frame exposure is always a challenge when shooting fast moving sports out of doors in rapidly shifting light.

My first preference when out of doors is shoot Manual mode. As long as the sun to subject axis is consistent, your exposure should not vary. I know wildlife shooters who do this for birds in flight, which can shift from sunlit to shade in the blink of an eye. Cars and cars races should not reallyvary under sunlight that much from frame to frame, so Manual mode might be the better choice.

The other choice, is to shoot Av, with Evaluative metering, or maybe you might prefer centered weighted metering.

I shoot Av with Evaluative metering for most of my wildlife shots out of doors, but the light is less consistent than the open field of a race track.

I will be interested to hear if someone has an ideal solution to this issue, as we all experience it from time to time.

Yet another issue is our meters are built for film not raw capture. When will this ever up updated? Without at least some exposure compensation, treating raw like a jPEG (or film) just produces a lower signal to noise ratio due to ‘under exposure’.