Help! I do not have spot metering in my menu

You show the menu from the stills functionality of the EOS M, yet you are using the video mode. The video mode does not offer the different metering modes. The sense and nonsense of spot metering during video can be debated, but I am just pointing out that the manual is talking about stills photography there.

Tragic/Magic lantern will offer functionality probably of interest to you.

brightcolours said:

You show the menu from the stills functionality of the EOS M, yet you are using the video mode. The video mode does not offer the different metering modes. The sense and nonsense of spot metering during video can be debated, but I am just pointing out that the manual is talking about stills photography there.

Tragic/Magic lantern will offer functionality probably of interest to you.

Click to expand...

Is he even aware that the mode switch on the camera is set to shoot video? I guess that he must know, since the only mode options (including the manual option) in the INFO menu clearly shows that the modes relate to video. Yet the post makes no mention of video shooting intent. Confusing indeed.

Eos m only has evaluative metering in video mode.

Fundamentally I would NOT use any mode but manual for video, no servo AF, no auto exposure, etc !

You then have the needed control over the important aspects of the M for video, the exposure meter on bottom is your guide.

BTW, there is nothing really special about video and the M, it is just like all the other Canon DSLR's, except for no VF, and unless shooting trivial/casual video, not many will use 'Auto' on any serious video capture, control is YOUR job, exposure, ISO, DOF, Focus, etc.

Magic/Tragic Lantern offers nice additions, possibly the most important is you can either reduce or increase the bit rate of the video capture, & another useful video option is 'crop mode' which uses the center of the sensor, thus no row/column skipping, thus MUCH reduced artifacts.

I get bad distracting artifacts on a slow simmering/low tide ocean with setting sun (for ex.), colors abound on water surface due to the artifacts, in crop mode - ZERO artifacts ! (artifacts are NOT eliminated/decreased by increasing the bit rate!)

The ONLY downside of crop is the approx. 3.2x crop/zoom factor, which of course can be great if you need to zoom more!

BTW, I have gotten approx. 235 mbits/sec H.265 recording (limit of encoder/SD writer) with M, and in crop mode very smooth & low noise nice detail in shadows.

GL!