I second the comments about incident metering. I do like to use the zone system a lot, but also find myself using the incident in situations like the above unless I know exactly what zone I want to place an object on. For instance I did a dog portrait the other day and really didn't know exactly what zone to put his particular tone of fur on. So I used incident and it worked great. Snow scenes and scenes with lots of dark objects seem to be easier this way for me as well. So I am glad that I have one of those meters that lets me pick between spot and incident for different situations...
Scott
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