> > in the January Shutterbug. He praises the camera, but faintly > (well-featured for a Pentax). He does note that the program metering > overexposes, which some of us have complained about in previous Pentax > cameras. > > The metering is, of course, designed for color print film. I don't > understand why Pentax manuals don't suggest using center-weighted with > slide film (which I have long done). > > So far, on the starkistdee, I have been using program metering. This is > experimental, though. If I get overexposed images (haven't so far) I > will change that knob permanently to center-weighted.
That would certainly make things more predictable for you, if you have trained yourself to know how to compensate for the problems with center- weighted metering. And, depending on what you shoot, might even reduce the number of times you have to compensate. Personally I don't trust either method in really tricky lighting; if I have to rely on the in- camera metering I'll spot meter on an important part of the scene, and expose based on how I want that area to come out. I've found many situations where center-weighted metering has suggested overexposure, but where multi-segment metering does better; just about any strongly back-lighted scene with a large dark object in much of the foreground is one obvious case. One further observation; many of the complaints about Pentax overexposure come from reviewers who recommend rating Velvia at ISO 40 to get correct exposures.
