Program AE Mode?

[unpopular]

^^ are you thinking full auto or program?

Program feels weird, i'll admit. But I don't think it's that different from Av or Tv.

 

[Kolia]

You can aim your spot meter anywhere, provided that you provide enough exposure to compensate the reading. One of the biggest mistakes people make when looking at exposure is the conclusion that "proper exposure" exists.

there is no such thing as proper exposure

Instead of looking at exposure as a matching game, lining up zeros and triangles, consider instead the metered tone on a scale, with each step represented by one stop.

Zone System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, simply pointing your meter at the place where you want it to be "properly exposed" won't do the trick, unless your model is indian or hispanic, is green grass or a deep blue afternoon sky. Pointing the meter at a light subject will cause the subject to under expose, pointing it at a dark subject will cause it to over expose. But you can compensate for this by adjusting exposure accordingly.

Spot metering will measure the specific focus point only instead of the whole field of view.

I have yet to not expose properly a target using the spot metering.

Unless I'm missing something in your post, I don't see how that helps the OP ?!?

 

[Overread]

Far as I know program works like this:

1) The photographer half presses the shutter button, thus engaging the cameras built in meter to work. Based upon what you aim the camera at and upon the metering mode that you select the scene is now metered by the camera.

2) The camera processes the light from the meter and selects a shutter speed and aperture based upon the available light and the ISO set by the user (if you use auto ISO the camera will also select an ISO). This is a bit where you'll get a bit of difference camera to camera as different ones do different things in the background with regard to metering and how it allocates the various 3 settings.

3) The upshot is that in a split second the photographer is given an aperture, shutter speed and ISO for the exposure. However the photographer can also use the control wheel to change those 3 values to one of 8 or so different combinations. Each combination will give the same exposure; but each will have a different assortment of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

The idea is that the photographer has some control over the exposure properties, but the camera does all the legwork in setting them. It's kind of a middle way between full auto, where the photographer has no contro, and the priority modes.

 

[unpopular]

Spot metering will measure the specific focus point only instead of the whole field of view.

I have yet to not expose properly a target using the spot metering.

Unless I'm missing something in your post, I don't see how that helps the OP ?!?

If you spot meter without using exposure compensation (either in AE or manually) then you have to find a middle-grey reference. You can't just point it at anything and hope it works.

Try the following experiment. take a white piece of paper, in a dimly lit room spot meter the paper, adjust the exposure to "zero" and expose. Repeat the experiment in a well lit area. When you examine your file, both exposures will yield the same luminance in the exposure. Now do the same exercise, but adjust the exposure by +2 1/3 stop. Again, exam the files and you will find that once again the two look exactly the same.

The question is, which one appears more similar to what a white sheet of paper should look like - the exposure at ±0 or the exposure at +2 1/3? The exposure at +2 1/3 is. This is because a meter at null does not indicate "proper exposure" but rather that it meets similar conditions to that which it was calibrated.

Realizing this means that you don't need a middle grey reference to get expected results, and from there it is evident that any metered region can be placed into any zone. With this understanding, the photographer has control over how the scene is rendered, rather than limited to the "one size fits all" approach of middle-grey referencing.