In photography when should I use the metering?

[Jay M]

I'm still trying to figure out when to use these : 1. spot metering, 2. partial metering, 3. center weighted metering, 4. average metering, .and last multi-zone metering. what are these and what's the difference. Answers would be much appreciated.

 

[Little Prince]

In most cases I use multi-zone metering, and compensate the exposure when it's needed.This is the fastest and simplest way to obtain good exposure, but you also can experiment-ate with other tip-es of metering.

 

[jt c]

Spot metering uses only a small spot to gather exposure data from. In older cameras this was the center spot in some newer ones you can set it to the same point you set your autofocus to. Some newer cameras also let you set the size of the spot in the menus/ I use spot metering when there is a great deal of difference in the light on your subject and the surrounding light. Meter for your subject. If its on manual leave it there and recompose if its not on manual hold the exposure lock button and recompose.Realize your background may be blown out or way too dark in these settings. Partial metering is similar to spot metering but it meters only one zone in your viewfinder. Center weeighted talkes most of the exposure data Usually around 60 percent) from a larger circle in the center of the viewfinder and then factors in some of the remainder of the viewfinder light to try to get a subject that is well exposed but a background that is also not totally dark or blown out. It works best when there is still a difference between background and subject but not as great a difference that the camera cannot reconcile some of it. Again you may need to use the exposure lock and recompose. Center weighted is a type of average metering ( weighted ) . Average metering takes several areas and tries gets an average of the exposure needed for all of them. Multi zone is a type of average meter. Multizone or matrix metering is when the camera uses multiple zones to gather exposure data and again tries to average the data to get good exposure throughout. In high contrast photos with a great variance in light it can give you flatter looking photos but in areas where the light does not vary greatly it does a good job of keeping both the subject and the objects around it both exposed properly. I've been told some newer camers have facial or image recognition in the firmware and will actually on matrix try to weight the area of the subject more heavily in the averaging process

So when there is the greatest difference in lighting between subject and background -- spot meter

When you want to make sure you have the lighting of the subject right and still see the background center weighted

When you have lighting of the subject and background that are close enough that you will not lose too much contrast if you try to keep everything exposed well matrix

These of course are not in stone and things like active D lighting in the firmware to help with shadows and such can let you use things like matrix metering most of the time.
I hope this helps