I have a question on how you all set up your camera in manual mode and how you meter in manual mode. With and without flash.
When in M and shooting people or high contrast scenes I always set camera up with spot metering and take my exposure reading with the viewfinder using the spot placed on the part of the subject I want properly exposed. Then I set my aperture and/or shutter speed based on that reading.
When in A,S or P modes I set up my camera with exposure lock on the half press and always with back button focusing. I almost always set focus with the back button, then use spot metering, locking my exposure on the spot I want properly exposed with a half press, then frame the shot and shoot. I have my back button focus button set to continuous so I can either focus and let go to lock focus or keep holding the back button down to keep focusing continuously. If I know where my subject will be in the frame, I will move the focus point in the viewfinder to where I think I will be focusing to make framing the shot faster.
When shooting in M and with TTL flash (that’s what I usually do) I’m not sure how best to set up the metering for the TTL. I assume that the TTL system reads exposure off of the metering points the same way depending on the metering settings, but I have not played with it to see the difference. I’m mostly shooting flash indoors with moving subjects (ballroom dance couples) so perhaps I would be better switching from spot metering because I generally don’t have the time to meter and focus moving people and know what part of the subject the metering spot is on.
Any thoughts on this?