Canon EOS 1200D review – Metering
The Canon EOS 1200D features a 63-area iFCL colour-sensitive meter, which is the same one as that used in the EOS 1100D and the high-end EOS 7D. In use, it was very accurate and was only rarely fooled by a scene. For the most part it fared well, even in challenging, high-contrast conditions.
It is possible to change between the 1200D’s three different metering modes (evaluative, centreweighted and partial) using the quick menu and the LCD. Partial metering is much the same as spot metering, but it meters from around 10% of the scene rather than 3%.
By holding the dial marked AV next to the thumb grip, and tweaking the scroll wheel on the top of the camera, users can change the exposure compensation. This is a range of ±3EV in 1⁄3EV increments. This makes adjusting images that have been thrown by the metering very easy. In one example, I was photographing in woodland and was faced with a scene that exceeded the dynamic range capabilities of the sensor. Much of the highlight detail was blown and some detail in shadows was lost, so I set the EV to underexpose by 2 stops. As a result, I was able to bring back a lot of detail from the shadow areas in post-production from a raw file.
