Quote Originally Posted by Joel Eade


JJphoto'


What I do is to use the central AF point only, in manual mode, place it on the bird and watch the exposure meter in view finder as you adjust the camera to correctly expose the bird ....the exposure meter should read zero after your adjustments. I want to keep my shutter speed up and a good DOF so I tend to adjust ISO to get the right exposure but sometimes I will adjust shutter speed and f stop a little. On a bright sunny day start with ISO 400 f/8 1/2000 and work from there. (reference the Sunny 16 Rule
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Can I ask why you are using manual mode if you're relying on the camera's metering logic to guide your adjustments anyway? Why not aperture priority and adjust ISO as needed? Then switch to spot metering if you want high-key just as you need to with your manual method. Seems simpler, faster and more able to react to changing conditions, but maybe I'm missing something. If it's just the way you prefer to work that's totally fine with me, but if there's some advantage to it then I'd definitely want to start making use of it





**EDIT** It occurred to me that it's probably so that you don't need to hold auto exposure lock for recomposing different shots. It that correct? Too bad spot metering doesn't work on any point