Hi Ian,
Thanks for your response and again I learn something new, thank-you.
I knew that you rely heavily, or love to use the spot metering function, that is why I queried your choice of evaluative metering while using flash?
Is there 'that' much of a difference between the two?
When you say that Evaluative Metering utilizes approximately 6% of the field, I would expect that Spot Metering wouldn't be much smaller?
Bruce

Hi Bruce,

With evaluative metering, the exposure is automatically set to keep the highlights or brightest parts of the image from clipping. For example, if one is photographing a bird sitting in shade in a tree with bright patches of sky visible through the leaves, then evaluative metering will result in the bright patches of sky being properly exposed but the bird will probably be way under exposed. With spot metering (typically 1.5% of the field of view) one can get metering off the bird only and adjust the exposure accordingly. In the kind of tricky lighting situations we bird photographers face all the time, I find spot metering the most useful tool for consistently getting the right exposure.

Just to clarify your last query; evaluative metering uses the entire field of view, partial metering about 6% in the centre of the field of view, and spot metering about 1.5% in the centre of the field of view. Some cameras allow the metering spot to be moved away from the centre of the field of view and this is useful if one is using an off center AF point.

Hope this helps, Ian.