<snip> Al Hart notes that with mid-toned foliage and white birds, the camera exposes for the foliage and ignores the birds, which therefore come out overexposed. I think that's the right thing to do. The result should be a picture of mid-toned foliage with white birds. If the camera exposed for the birds, the result would be a picture of nearly black foliage with mid-toned gray birds. Would that be an improvement? Andrew Koenig I too think this is right. Without the F5 meter, small area of either white or black tend to over influence the meter, since the meter is striving to average everything in the scene to 18% gray. With the color meter of the Nikon F5, the camera 'knows' that small white or dark objects are often light sources, reflections, etc., and often ignores them, if they are small enough. Center weighted or averaging meters are fooled by these light sources. In other words, if the subjects are small enough, it doens't think of them as important and largely ignores them. At the recent Nikon School, the way they taught to meter is use Matrix metering UNLESS a very dark or very light subject takes up the majority of the scene, in which case the matrix system will be fooled. In that case, spot or center-weighted may work better, and the photographer may have to use his brain/experience to obtain the best exposure. As an aside, I spent two very enjoyable (Nikon related because I used Nikon's) hours on Sunday morning photographing African wildlife at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. One of the largest zoos in the USA, Busch puts together special photo safaris for groups. Busch is a large 'zoo', with the majority of animals roaming 'wild' in large areas (acres in size). The normal way to see the animals is from a monorail that moves through the area. The safari was conducted from a set of trucks made for the purpose. Excellent cooperation from the guide (who has been to Africa twice) and driver. Several times the guide had the driver move the truck just a few feet back or forth, to help eliminate disturbing backgrounds. I went with a local camera club that I am thinking of joining. Shot nine rolls of film, mostly with a Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 with a 1.4X Nikkor teleconverter attached, and only used the 500mm f/8 mirror I brought along for a few shots. Photographed zebra, giraffes, gazelles, impala, rhinos, cranes, guinea hens, mercats, baboons, vultures, storks, and several other species. The cape buffalo did not cooperate, unfortunately. The surprise was photographing a pair of ostrich mating so close to the truck that I had to use a 20-35mm! Busch will put one of these safari's together for any group of (roughly) ten or more people. We even went out before the park opened, to get better lighting (shot from 8:15 to 10:15). Drinks on the trucks were included in the price. It was interesting to note that the president of the club, who stood near me, used a Gossen incident light meter instead of the one in his Canon EOS. I wonder why ... Colin
