larryepage wrote:
Yes...if you learn how to enable that feature. Or if you are willing to let your camera "choose" what it thinks is the most important subject. That may work fine, or it may not, depending on what you are photographing. I rarely wish to focus on the closest object, and quite often not on the closest person.
TTL metering has from the start been a wonderful aid with some really big potential "gotchas." And that is true no matter the metering pattern. Spots are almost always too big, full frame and matrix are sometimes not selective enough, and center-weighted can be too mysterious in how the weighting actually works.
Each of these systems requires that the photographer know how they work, understand their limitations, figure out the consequences, and have a strategy for dealing with what's left. It can be accomplished, but it isn't free. The advantage of a handheld small angle spot meter is that it indicates exactly what it is metering on. All you have to do is decide what to do with the reading.
The problem is that in-camera focusing and metering systems, while very capable, are nowhere nearly as smart as most folks seem to give them credit for being. All of them, even the newest and best of them, can be pretty easily fooled in the very situations when we would like to rely on them most. None of them completely relieve the photographer from the need to have at least a fundamental level of knowledge and skill and to be ready and willing to put it to work.
Yes...if you learn how to enable that feature. Or ... (
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reaction to challenging situations is a down and dirty DIY PBG (personal best guess).