Metering under street lighting?

[ang]

Any suggestions on taking "people" photos at night under street lamps/lighting? What do you meter off of for correct exposure?

I'm planning on using 800 speed color slide film with shoe mount flash.

 

[Big Mike]

I think it depends on your camera and the mode you have it set in.

In the dark, my camera would give me values to expose for the dark scene...which of course does not account for the flash.

So I put the camera in manual mode and match the aperture & ISO on the camera & flash. Then you use the shutter speed to control how much exposure the background will get.

The exposure of the subject is controlled by the output/duration of the flash unit.

Maybe if you have a newer camera than mine, it might do something like control the flash exposure based upon centre weighted metering or something like that. I don't know.