300D metering

[Matt]

Ok i have a 300d as you all know and now i find that the metering sucks, what can i do to improve this, will the Wasia hack give me the ability to select spot metering when i want it and not when it tells me i need it?

 

[silkstone]

Sorry, matty, but the hack won't improve the metering. It will give you FEC, One-Shot AF and a few other things which may be useful. Just my 2p as ever, but the 300D and 10D seem to take a lot of notice of exposure at the selected AF point - almost like spot metering in a way - and the camera tries hard not to burn out highlights, and so tends to underexpose. I find it helps to lock exposure on something mid-toned (that works with flash too).

After a while you get used to all this and compensate for it, but I have to admit that my trusty ol' G2 is more likely to get it right first time than the 10D, which seems wrong somehow. Quite often I just set it to manual and guestimate the exposure - then look at the histogram to see if I'm right. (Use 'review with info', I think it's called.)

Not much help, am I? ("Nothing changes," I hear....)

 

[Matt]

thanks silky, your right, not much help at all.....lol


i will play about and see if i can get round it as you suggest, can only learn if i do it that way!

 

[MyPix]

you could try ' bracketing ' your shots in tricky situations,
one of em will come out good

MyPix

 

[Steve]

I am not sure about the hack and I am afraid that it’s been a while since I used a 300D so my memory of the metering modes that are selected by the camera is rather sketchy. Have a play around and see in what modes the camera selects the different metering modes; this will give you an idea of what the camera has been told to use and a starting point. I am guessing that in landscape mode it will use evaluative for example. The next stage will be to test the camera to see what modes you can force using the hack (if installed) or by selecting AV or Tv priority.

After that bracketing shots is a way forward or better still would be to shoot in RAW. Canon RAW when processed in Photoshop CS will give you a working range of +/- 2 full stops so even if you meter incorrectly you have a nice area or scope from which you can recover. By processing the raw file twice, one converted for the highlights/bright areas and the other for the dark/shadows then combining them in Photoshop you should be able to cover all exposure issues, even the most complex.

Matt has kindly written a simple tutorial to demonstrate the process of blending the two different exposure together in Photoshop (Got Digital? Don't need filters. ) and Silkstone has followed suit and offered the same thing but utilising PSP.

Both of the tutorials can be found in our Tutorials, links and reviews section.