Which Canon bodies have a narrow angle light meter?

[brendan_mcinerney]

I am in the market for a Canon 35mm film camera and I wanted to know if there

were any with built in narrow angle light meters. I would greatly apreciate the

help.

[mike_kim]

Narrow angle light meters? If you are talking about a spot meter, EOS 1V or 3 have a spot meter (around 2.4% of view finder).

[PuppyDigs]

They all do. It depends on what you mean by narrow angle light meter. The smallest the Elan

7 series can meter is 10% of the total image area. The 3 and 1V are a tiny 2.4% but have a

8.5% pattern as well. If you're looking at used models, the EOS 5 I seem to recall was 3.5%

and the older Rebels and Elan were about 10%. Most models also have a CW pattern as well.

 

Personally I found the 2.4% pattern too tight. The 8.5-10% seemed ideal for products, gray

cards and theater.

[jimstrutz]

You can attach a longer lens to a camera with a wider spot meter. This effectively reduces the angle of the meter. I recall figuring that with a 300mm lens, the 10% meter on my Elan was now only 2 degrees wide. With a 600mm lens it became a true 1 degree spot meter. Not like I carry one of those around with me though.

[jcolwell]

Have a look at the <a href="http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/canoncamera.htm">PhotoZone Canon EOS film SLR feature overview</a> pages.

[gdanmitchell]

On a hunch that someone may have told you that this is a distinguishing factor in these

cameras, a thought or two...

 

While some of the more expensive DSLRs do include spot metering (or something close to

it), most photographers don't really know how to correctly use this feature and/or don't

have the time to properly use it. If you do know what it is, and how it works, and if you

shoot in a manner that is conducive to spot metering by all means get it. Otherwise, this

feature may well be of little or no use to you.

 

In addition, many photographers who might have spot metered with a film camera don't

do so with a DSLR. Since the camera can give you instant feedback in the form of the

histogram display and the flashing overexposure indicator, it is often much faster and just

as effective to rely on these data rather than spot metering.

 

Here's my true confession: I do a lot of landscape photography, often in complicated light.

I never spot meter. My typical approach is to:

 

1. Do a trial exposure in Av mode using the aperture that I prefer to shoot at.

 

2. Inspect the histogram.

 

3. Switch to manual mode and set exposure based on what I saw in the histogram.

 

4. Take a "real" exposure and inspect histogram again.

 

5. For extremely wide DR scenes, take additional exposures as necessary.

 

In practice this is faster and just as accurate as spot metering.

 

Take care,

 

Dan