Other scenes where Spot metering works very well will be fashion shows, especially those where there are striking contrasts between the colors/brightness of the clothes they are wearing against the illuminations on the backgrounds. When faced with circumstances like these, always use the Spot meter of your EOS camera to take a meter reading exclusively on the faces of the models, regardless of how bright or dimly lit the overall situation will be like during the shows. Or the colors of the clothes that the models are wearing. Model in dark blouse and white shorts Model in dark outfits For the above two photos, Spot metering on the EOS-1V and tungsten-balanced color film were used. Blacks and whites don't give precise exposure readings to any built-in camera meter. So in these circumstances, Spot metered them on the faces (flesh tones are neutral) will give a precise meter reading whenever you are faced with such situations. Night-time scenes are also not easy to shoot for most shutterbugs. As explained above, blacks and whites don't give out precise readings to any built-in exposure meter. So night-time gray and dark skies present the same problem as regular black to many beginner and hobbyist shooters. And how to compensate for dark skies in night-time photography? Use the Spot meter of your camera, take a reading of the dark areas, sky, buildings, etc. and set the exposure by two stops less than what the camera reading suggests. Why underexposed? Twin Towers at dusk View from Suria KLCC concourse Because blacks don't give precise readings to your camera's meter. The two stops "underexposure" would be just right to even out the overall exposure, just like this scene of the Petronas Twin Towers shown above. As for the view from the concourse of Suria KLCC, the final exposure was decided by first getting an intermediate reading from both the highlight and shadow areas of the scene. Once the differences between the highlight and shadow areas were known, getting the camera to set an intermediate exposure value was initiated and the scene above was recomposed. Text and photos by Philip Chong. Copyright 2001 by Canon Marketing (M) Sdn Bhd << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .