Actually metering for the highlight is not a bad way to go for most outdoor shots. I kept a log once of scenes I had metered and with bright puffy clouds and "normal" subjects a 4 stop spread is normal and 5 stops quite rare. So placing your highlights on Zone 8 in these situations you will still get plenty of shadow detail. As an experiment, go outside on a sunny day with a white and black card, put the white card in the sun and the black card in the shade and spotmeter them, you'll be suprised by the results.(posted 8788 days ago)Of course backlit scenes, which I shoot a lot of, can have SBR's of quite a bit more than 5 stops in which case placing your highlight on zone 8 will not work.
Mark