Today’s DSLR is a complex tool. It’s much smarter and more complicated than it’s predecessors. With each new generation the matrix metering algorithms become more complex and more accurate. The technology in these cameras is in fact, so smart that many of you will never even need to move your camera off of matrix metering. The majority of you will find far better results trusting your in camera matrix meter than to try and master the other settings. To fully utilize the benefits of spot metering requires an understanding of the zone system that is far beyond the scope of this tutorial and this writer. Rather than teach you the science behind it all, I’ll share with you how I’ve come to use spot metering in my everyday life as an n amateur photographer.
In concert photography, I often find myself in low light situations and cranking up the ISO on my Canon EOS 7D. The light is so low that I end up shooting wide-open most of the time, trying to find that balance of give and take between depth of field and low light performance. One of the things I love about concert photography is that the background is rarely as important as the musician in terms of photo composition. In the article below I’ll walk you through two scenarios I find myself in on a regular basis.
The first scenario is that I’m covering a rock concert that has a team of people managing pyrotechnics and an advanced automated lighting rig. This is where that spot meter really shines. If I leave my camera in matrix metering mode the background lights are going to make the meter jump left and right like crazy as they move back and forth and flash on and off. The camera is going to try and expose for the whole scene and as a result most of my shots are going to have this fantastic background lighting and just a silhouette of the musicians on the stage. It’s kind of like those motivational posters with beautiful sunset and the silhouette of the guy running along the beach. I might get lucky and click at just the right time, but chances are I’m going to miss my shot. I could switch the camera into burst mode and probably get something useful, but then I would have 10 times as many pictures to sort through, and most of them would be garbage. Not to mention the wear and tear of the added actuations on the camera and the strain on the battery life. If I switch it to spot metering, the camera is only going to meter from the selected autofocus sensor.
It’s going to completely disregard the laser light show in the background and instead tell me how to meter for whatever autofocus censor I’ve selected. The great majority of the time I’m pulling focus from the musicians face and the spot meter is going to expose it properly. It will still hop around a little bit as these lights reflect off of the face of the musician and the recommended exposure will change with them, but it’s much more manageable than the alternative. The cool thing is that the background light show is so powerful that it’s still going to look pretty great in the background albeit not as bright. Even if it completely blacks out the effects, of the lights, I’ve still got my subject well exposed, and in focus.
The second scenario is that I’m in a small intimate venue. There’s more often than not a dark curtain used as a backdrop and a single spotlight used to illuminate the performer on stage. If it’s a band as opposed to a solo act there may be a few more lower powered spotlights, but rarely enough to light up the whole stage. They do this to set a mood and it’s my job to capture that mood in the photographs. In terms of composition this becomes very basic. I can almost completely ignore everything but the main performer. The problem is that there are additional variables. If I’m shooting in a real dark place, and I’ve got the camera cranked up at ISO 1600 and I’m at f/2.8 on my 17-55is lens, I know that I can’t drop below a shutter speed of 1/30 and I’d prefer to be at 1/60 or the guitar players hand is going to be a blur. He’s strumming too fast for the shutter to keep up at anything less. It doesn’t matter what the meter is going to recommend because these variables have made these decisions for me. Sometimes my environment dictates my shutter speed before I can even look at my meter. But let’s say for a moment that I’m not photographing the guitar player. Let’s say I’m photographing the singer, or I can sense that there’s a pause coming up in the song where I think I might be able to get away with a slower shutter speed. Switch the camera into spot metering. As in the above scenario this will allow me to expose specifically for whatever shows up in the selected autofocus sensor. When you get home and start editing your pictures you’ll notice that you’ve underexposed your background, but it doesn’t matter. That isolated black background adds far more to the picture than it takes away. First of all it allows for the performer’s story to be told in their facial expressions or their body language, and secondly it helps communicate the mood of the performance. The lack of exposure and detail in the background now adds to the composition. In these small intimate venues there’s a certainly vulnerability that’s captured best by an underexposed background. It helps tell the story that this performer was on the stage alone trying to connect to an audience that admires from a distance.
Does this mean that if you’re not doing any concert photography you don’t need to use spot metering? I’m not saying that at all. I use this only as an example of when I use spot metering. The problem with spot metering is its potential effect on the composition. If I’m shooting outdoor portraits occasionally the camera will try to expose for the sky as opposed to the subject matter. In these cases, I prefer to expose for my subject. I throw the camera in spot metering mode and make certain that the subject is exposed properly. More often than not I just use the meter as a guide instead of a rule. I use it to check and see what the camera thinks and I make an educated guess from there. I’ll see where the meter wants the subject exposed and I’ll check where the meter wants the background exposed and split the difference. As long as I’m shooting in raw I have the flexibility to make subtle exposure corrections one way or the other in post processing.
I didn’t talk about center weighted metering because I don’t use it. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not a tool in my bag of tricks. For the majority of you, I recommend that you keep using your matrix meters and shooting in RAW. If you find you’re constantly clipping your highlights add a little exposure compensation. For the rest of you, who like myself, can’t leave well enough alone and are determined to push the capabilities of your cameras, then by all means play around with spot metering. It’s really helped me to understand how exposure and light are often the difference between a good picture and a great picture.
