Metering Modes (20D)

mercphoto

I have a question about the three metering modes on my 20D. Usually I use the Evaluative Metering mode, and I'm rather happy. I've just started shooting high school football, which is often under artificial lighting, and I think I should change my metering mode. You often have a somewhat illuminated player against a dark background. In that case, I'm only concerned about proper metering of the subject,not of the background.

In that case, do I switch to Partial metering instead? The description is that it is suitable for backlit subjects, but I'm wondering if it would work well in the opposite direction as well.

Lastly, the center weighted averaging, I guess I'm fuzzy as to when to use that mode.

Thanks.

gluwater

Good question, wish I could answer it but I can't. I'm interested in finding this out also.

Shay Stephens

The lighting doesn't change that much in a situation like that, so I would probably shoot manually and not worry about metering modes.

pathfinder

I shot my niece's wedding last Saturday - 4 pm in a tent on a golf course - strongly backlit shooting much of the day and also later for shots of the wedding party also. I knew this situation was trouble when I looked at it. SO I decided to use a wireless transmitter -( Canon ST-E2) in my hot shoe to trigger a 580EX and a 550EX on light stands in a 2:1 ratio. This was fairly successful.
The mistake I made was using Evaluative Metering which was fooled by the strong backlighting and left me with several underexposed shots. Fixable in RAW. I think that if I had used Partial metering [()] or even centerweighted averaging [ ], that I would have been better off. The Manual does say that for strongly backlit scenes that Partial Metering is preferable.

I also would like to have real battery powered mono lights, rather than the 580ex or the 550ex, because hey are not really strong enough outdoors for groups to really balance a strongly backlit scene.

As Shay says, stadium lighting shuld remain fairly stable and allow shooting manually once you know your exposure.

Seamus

Have you tried setting the custom fuction 4 to 3. This sets the * button to focus and sets exposure as each shot is taken. I use this for motorbike racing and it seems to do a decent job.