On 20 Jul 2005 at 1:12, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > Hi Rob - I was always of the impression that multi-segment metering was > "smarter" than that. I guess it's just some more marketing hype, or > perhaps the differences in the scene were such that it could fool the > meter. It's results like these that consistently keep me skeptical of > in-camera meters. Another fine example of how "technology is my friend." > Usually I just eyeball a scene or make a quick scan using a hand-held > meter, set the exposure, and start shooting, never changing the exposure > unless the light has changed. That you can't get repeatable results even > in manual mode is disheartening.
It's actually pretty smart but you have to be aware of what it's actually doing in order to take full advantage of it. Remember digital capture is much like shooting slide film, highlights are a problem and things can get quite messy with gross over-exposure. Multi-segment metering looks across the whole frame and attempts to keep the highlights within a reasonable range and in balance with the remainder of the frame. It definitely didn't suite your needs given the shot you used it for but I bet it taught you a lesson or two :-) Where multi-segment metering shines is when capturing images in RAW format, it most often produces the most broad and versatile exposure. Unfortunately sometimes these excellent exposures look like crap before post processing. With in camera JPG you have no choice but to get the exposure right given that a goodly chunk of the captured data is discarded in the in-camera RAW transform. IMHO a DSLR won't really start working for you until you stop treating it like a film camera. Cheers, Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
