Why do none of the low to mid range EOS cameras have a spotmeter?
Pro EOS cameras are the only models to contain spotmeters, and this is for marketing reasons. Canon have apparently decided that spotmetering capability – metering light over a small area of the image, typically 1-3% – is a good tool to use to get people to buy more expensive cameras. So unfortunately only their professional and semi-professional cameras have true spotmeters; the exception being the advanced amateur digital EOS 30D. The least expensive of these options is the venerable and now-discontinued EOS 5/A2/A2E. The other cameras with spotmetering – the EOS 3, 1, 1N, 1V, 1D, 1Ds, 1D mark II, 1D mark IIN, 1Ds mark II, 5D – are all pretty costly. If you can t afford any of these cameras or don t like how big and heavy most of them are then you ll have to make do with the partial metering feature – metering over about 6.5% to 10.5% of the image area, depending on the model – carried by almost all EOS cameras. Or you can acquire a separate handheld spotmeter and use that. Note, how
