7D Metering mode?

A question I am still trying to answer for myself. When shooting wide-angle I am in full manual, so this does not apply, but shooting macro/fish shots I often use the STTL with my Inon's and am curious what other 7D users find works best for them.

Probably my biggest disappointment with the 7D (which I think is a great camera) is that the metering point is only attached to the center point and not movable or linkable to a selected point (like your selected AF point for example).

So for example, if shooting a macro subject on a 60mm where you might have more background around your subject, unless your subject is direct in the center of frame (which normally I find a boring comp) the camera will still be metering off the center of frame which could be black sand and your subject a white or colorful nudi or something - of course this would affect your metering and your exposure. You could meter off the subject and then exposure lock and recompose I guess... but that seems like a bit extra work when we already have a lot to think about.

If your on a 100mm or something where your subject fills the frame, this probably does not matter so much...

So, do you find center weighted, partial, evaluative, spot? Which works best for you???

I am curious as well but have not experimented with this yet.

Could you use the *AE Lock (see bottom of pg. 106) while using one of the AF points:

"AE lock is applied at the AF point that achieved focus."

I normally meter with spot mode, but am going to try out evaluative which while it meters the whole frame, it is the only mode which is actually linked to your focus point giving some amount of priority to that point. Otherwise, I will play around with mapping the AEL to my half-press shutter with AF on the back button - trying to play around with a fast method with as few button presses as possible.

I am curious as well but have not experimented with this yet.

Could you use the *AE Lock (see bottom of pg. 106) while using one of the AF points:

 

"AE lock is applied at the AF point that achieved focus."

I found that the new shutter release mechanism is no sensative that you can feel the half depress on the shutter that the AF-On button and its well located lever near your R thumb on the nauticam was null and void, so i have changed its setting in the custom menu on the 7d.

I was originally using it for focus lock because i was using AI Servo focus, which allows me some movement (breathing) when focusing on a small subject. So the AF lock allowed me to lock off the focus and reposition for composition. Its easy to do with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand.

If you are moving your focus point per subject, you could use the AF-on button, re-mapped to AE Lock, to lock your exposure on a point, i.e the colourful nudi on the dark sand, and then reposition for composition.

Hope this helps. Keep trying with different setups, but remember its always harder u/w, so KISS (keep it super simple). I have tried all these and now just satisfied with manual exp in both macro and WA.

Olly

I know how the metering works with a 5dmkII, and I guess the same applies to the 7d. When using flash, the ETTL works either in Evaluative or Avarage mode.

From the 7D manual p117

For normal flash exposures, set it to [Evaluative].

If [Average] is set, the flash exposure will be averaged for the entire metered scene as with an external metering flash.

If I'm not mistaken, evaluative metering does take in the selected focus point into the equation. It should be fairly easy to test, just set it up as normal, lock focus, and take a shot with the focus point on something black, then move the focus point to something more white, and see if the exposure changed. I'm pretty sure it will.

This all assumes that your in M-mode while doing the strobe shooting.

/Björn