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Why dont cameras identify midtones to meter from?
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cameras are quite advanced now days with excellent focusing and loads of other features but one thing i always wonder is why dont they have some functionality to analyze the image in a frame before its taken, find the darkest and lightest points in the frame and find the middle ground from which perfect metering could be obtained?
Is it such an impossible task? It wouldnt need to be on all the time, for when you want to do manual metering, but it would be certainly usefull for candids and those spur of the moment shots.
Nikon’s matrix metering does something very similar and I’m sure Canon’s do too, it also tries to match the distribution of tones against a database of sample photographs to try and figure out what you’re taking a picture of. The problem is not the metering, it’s just that the camera can’t read your mind. It doesn’t have any way of knowing if you want to underexpose the background to highlight the main subject or overexpose the background to get a sihlouette, or something in between. There’s no fixed ‘correct exposure’ that applies across the board to every photograph unless you want to use the zone system and that’s what most evaluative metering cameras are trying to emulate. Cameras also have no idea if you’re a photojournalist or a creative portrait artist and the day you have a menu option for each photographic niche is the day I take up basket weaving instead!
They do, in a manner of speaking. It’s called spot metering. Select spot, point the camera at a midtone, depress the shutter button halfway, recompose and shoot.
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