Apparently the flash metering is always spot metering no matter what else you have the camera set to. A custom function (CF-13???) allows you to associate the spot reading with the active focusing point. Do you know if that applies to the flash exposure as well as the ambient exposure?

Jaz

-- Jack A. Zucker (jaz@gwis.com), September 17, 2001

Answers

"Apparently the flash metering is always spot metering no matter what else you have the camera set to."

Not true. Canon's flash system NEVER uses spot metering to determine flash exposure.

"A custom function (CF-13???) allows you to associate the spot reading with the active focusing point. Do you know if that applies to the flash exposure as well as the ambient exposure?"

With E-TTL flash metering (using an EX series Speedlite with your EOS 3) will use the camera's built-in evaluative meter. It has multiple areas that it looks at to determine both ambient and flash exposure. Flash exposure will be determined by evaluating a pre-flash, just before the mirror rises. You can see this flash in the viewfinder. The flash exposure normally is biased to favor the active focusing point and the area surrounding it, but it certainly isn't spot metering.

If E-TTL is off (using an EZ series Speedlight, etc.) then the flash exposure is determined during exposure by a separate flash meter built into the camera that looks back at the film plane. There are four large segments to it and the camera favors the two segments that are closest to the active AF point.

This flash metering pattern doesn't change with the selection of ambient metering modes.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), September 17, 2001.

test....

-- Colin Miller (miller.photos@att.net), September 19, 2001.