DARK images

Hi there, i'm sure it's just me not gelling with the new camera yet. but does anyone else find k100d super to be very dark?

i was just shooting at 1/50, f4.5 and iso 1600.... and still images were very dark.

what am i doing wrong? even at f1.8 and 1/50 iso400... i'm needing to adjust exposure in processing.

i'm indoors, the light has 3 bulbs on it, and i don't feel the room is all that dark to need these sort of settings.

It's always disappointing how much light there actually is; what you perceive as not being that dark can be very dark for the camera.

Maybe you can post a sample? If you can leave EXIF intact, we can see what other settings you used. Was this on some auto mode or manual? What metering mode? Do you use EV compensation by accident. And yes, the camera can get it wrong!

I would guess that this is the likely explanation. If negative exposure compensation is set, and you manually adjust to give a meter reading of zero, then the shot is going to be under-exposed.

Cheers.
Philip

it's set to ev +-0

i'll upload one to flickr... it'll have all the settings at hand easy then.

ok, so this one is on iso1600, and f4.5

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danciminera/8386832072/in/photostream

and this one is f1.8 iso800 (i think the exposure is pretty nice and natural on this one... but i just don't feel it should need iso800 to achieve it)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danciminera/8385746745/in/photostream/

I've tried three exif viewers on your first image and can't see the aperture value in any of them. Is it an old manual lens?

Philip

yes theyre both old manual lenses. and the use aperture ring setting is definitely set to permitted.

I noticed in your Flickr image that you are fairly close to the bird, and that the background (and I think a white towel is also present in the image) is light/white. I wonder if your camera is suffering from "snow-blindness", affecting the metering? Try taking a similar shot with this type of scene (dunno if your camera has a "snow scene" setting)programmed into the camera. It's just something I think may be the cause. I could be wrong, of course, but it's something I'd explore if it happened to me.

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. It's a matter of expectation, I think.

The Sunny 16 rule suggests that you'd be shooting at f/16, 1/1600 at ISO 1600 in full sunlight. Unless I've made a mistake, 1/50, f/4.5, ISO 1600 is 8.5 stops increase in exposure.

Full sunlight corresponds to an illuminance of around 80,000 lux. In a typical living room, lit by a few tungsten lamps or low energy lamps, illuminance is likely to be 20 - 40 lux, which is 11-12 EV (stops) lower.

So ....... if the light is around 11-12 EV less than full sunlight, but your exposure is only 8.5 stops more then you could be underexposing by 2.5-3.5 stops. I reckon there's a strong chance that this is why your photos are too dark - they are just under exposed.

This is a photo I took around New Year, in my living room using a Pentax K30 with M50 f/1.7. It was taken at f/8, ISO 100 for 30 secs, which is about 12 stops up from a "Sunny 16" exposure.




The room was lit by a few Xmas tree lights and 3x 11w low energy lamps about 20ft from the tree.



Andrew

so it really is just due to poor light? ok fair. i'll just play around and get the hang of it.

steven, it's just a little cuttlefish bone, but i see what you mean. in what way might the distance affect it? i was on the opposite side of the room for the really dark one

Perhaps the fact that you appear to have cropped close when taking the initial shot? Did you zoom in on-camera, or did you crop from a wider shot? If you'd taken a shot incorporating some "intrusive" darker background, the meter would have read an average for the light available. I know that from past experience, if I use a zoom lens, and "home-in" on a lighter colour, the meter adjusted the shutter/aperture accordingly.

Try looking at (for example) a white object with a darker background with a zoom lens, and note any meter readings in your viewfinder/lcd screen. Now, zoom in on the white object and note what happens.

no neither are cropped, i just took them off the camera and saved them as jpegs to upload as the raw files failed to upload.