Nikon D700 shooting very low light

<p>Has anyone had any experience shooting with the new D700 from Nikon in very low light situations?</p>

<p>I purchased a D700 because I shoot live dance performances and cannot use flash. I usually shoot shutter priority 400. I am experiencing VERY inconsistent exposures. It is not changes in the stage lighting. Sometime it happens in a burst of 4 or 5 shots, but not always. They either become very overexposed or underexposed. Then it may shoot 5-10 shots in a row nearly black. </p>

<p>I have talked with several people, including Nikon and gone over my settings. It is not making sense to me why the exposures are different when the lighting has not changed? And this camera is made to shoot 6? frames p/second, since I am an old film photographer I still wait for the right shot and take them "one at a time" most of the time. I have better luck shooting with my D80.</p>

<p>Any ideas? Your help would be greatly appreciated as I primarily shoot in these conditions and regularly. </p>

<p>Cindi</p>

<p>I don't know about the matrix meter. Sometimes, especially point and shoots (**runs away screaming**) have spotlight modes (I don't know why since they don't shoot well over ASA 200). I always used manual exposure with my D50 just because a lot of the stage can be dark and you can get some crazy settings. I would go manual and use the digital "check the colors on the screen" method of exposure compensation. When the faces get clipped, pull it back. Is 1/400 overkill? I would use 1/125 and get the ASA as low as I could or the lens to a sharper aperture. You could try switching to the spot meter and using that as a reference point.</p>

<p>if the lighting doesn't change, then you should try running the camera in full manual exposure mode; at least to see if it's isolated to the automatic exposure system. or set the camera to lock AE until you manually unlock it</p>

<p>Shoot manual set for spotlighted performer. The exposure does not change in most perfarmances, but the light and dark areas move all over the place. Incamera meters place different weight on the bright area depending on where it is located in the frame.<br>

The exposure will not change even if a colored spot is changed. </p>

<p>With all the technology employed, reflected incamera meters still get confused. An incident meter is still the best choice whenever they can be used. Other than that, you need to learn to compensate for a reflected meter shortcomings.<br>

Set the camera spot meter or narrow 6 deg centerweighted on a performer at the beginning and do a few test exposures. After that, just take pic with that setting. As most costumes are not grey which is what the meter is calibrated for, but light colored, you will need to give more exposure than the meter indicated. A dark background will tend to tell you to overexpose if the meter is not 100% on the subject.</p>

<p>Now you know why movies are done with incident meters. No compensating guess.</p>

<p>Is there any chance you have accidentally turned on exposure bracketing?</p>

<p>I assume you are saying you are shooting at 1/400. Which lens and what aperture and ISO settings are you using? Maybe you could post a couple examples.</p>

 

<p>Shooting in manuel may be the best solution. I shot this way when I first switched to digital until I figured out my camera. There is not much time to stop and take a reading though, I usually just wing it (no pun intended) to adjust for lighting changes. I am shooting professional ballet dancers and no, 400 shutter speed is not over kill if you do not want a blurred mess. However it is nice on occasion to slow it down for an effect. </p>

<p>Matt, I will check on the exposure bracketing... would this cause the random black images? This still confuses me. </p>

<p>Thank you everyone for your imput<br>

Cindi</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Bruce here is an example of 9 consecutive shots. The lighting on the stage has not changed yet the exposure in the images are crazy. It's almost like the camera cannot read the lighting.</p>

<p>Sometimes I cannot get it to focus either. It is very frustrating. My D80 performs better for me. The only difference is the quality of the image at high ISOs.</p>

<p>I do not know that much about digital cameras but it appears to me there is something wrong with the camera? Does anyone else think the same thing?</p><div></div>

<p>i put them in one file so it i did not have to post 9 comments. i hope the order makes sense, i did not want to make it too large.</p>

<p>you can see the progression of exposures do not make sense. there are 6 black ones in a row before it starts taking again. </p><div></div>

<p>Wow, that is bad. Is it too late to return the camera?<br>

You don't have autobracketing selected by any chance, do you? The overexposed shots 2 & 4 could be the result of EV +1, but the dark shots are not likely to be EV -1, they are further away than that. My sympathies.</p>

<p>Cindi, I don't know what lens you are using but I will guess it is the kit lens that maybe came with the camera(?). For whatever reason, you have your settings way off. That first photo, for example, was shot at f/13, ISO 25,600. I understand the 1/400 (hey, they are dancers!) but there is no reason for the other settings. </p>

<p>The 1/400 is fine but in the future, I would stop down to a wider aperture which would be f/5.6 at least but f/4 should be fine since they dance so close to each other. This will get you down to a reasonable ISO working range of something like 3200 or better. That will clean up some of the noise and make for a much nicer crop. Obviously, this also would have been a bit better for cropping if you had a longer lens.</p>

<p>Hmmmm, there was no flash but some of the overexposures could be due to quick changes in lighting. Were you shooting in Continuous mode?</p>

 

<p>Sorry Cindi, one more question: Was the original shot in RAW? I'm thinking it wasn't so that leads to another question........ What was your White Balance set at?</p>

 

<p>been shooting since 1973, been to college, i'm an old school photographer. if i set the camera in manuel i would understand it better, but if i have all these settings on it, should i learn to use them?</p>

<p>i understood "shutter priority" to be semi-automatic. i chose this mode so i did not have to spend the time or think about changing settings. things move pretty fast onstage. but the camera does not seem to be doing a very good job at it.</p>

<p>i would bring down the ISO but then the pictures are too dark. </p>

<p>not a kit lens, sigma EX 70-200 opens up to 2.8. why would the lens make the camera expose images like this? and yes there are several lenses i would like to have, wanna buy me one? (smile) i have a good collection of lenses i can use if i shoot in manuel mode from my film cameras.</p>

<p>the lighting never changed during these 8 shots. it doesn't make sense to me? </p>

<p>questions:<br>

1. is the camera broken <br>

2. why do i not have this problem with my D80?<br>

3. is it just best to shoot in manuel mode under these conditions?</p>

<p>thanks for all your input<br>

Cindi</p>

<p>Hi Bruce-<br>

I appreciate your input, but I don't see how white balance and file choice has to do with exposure or at least the problems I am having? </p>

<p>cindi, you might want to ask this question in the nikon forum. you'll probably find more d700 users there.</p>

<p>Looks to me like either you've got some camera setting tweaked in an odd way, or your camera's malfunctioning. The exposures, as you say, are all over the map and that ain't good.</p>

<p>I'd send it back and ask for a replacement -- especially in light of the fact that you get more consistent exposures with your D80.</p>

<p>But do check over all the camera's settings before sending it off, just in case.</p>

<p>Dont' use use Matrix metering. Use CW. If you you do use Matrix, don't use exposure compensation. It is not recommended with it. Try this set-up: shoot in manual mode so you have control on both aperture and speed. Use Auto ISO, set to 3200 or even 6400 highest, and set the lower shutter speed to 1/400. You will be able to keep your speed at 1/400 but change aperture at will, and ISO will change according to changes of light. Again, in CW, not matrix. Just watch the EV scale in the VF to make sure your aperture is okay.</p>

<p>thanks eric- have a great day.</p>

<p>When I first bought my Nikon D300 a year ago, I ran into the same problem shooting outdoors. It turned out that I accidentally engaged exposure bracketing. Nikon did not put a dedicated exposure bracketing button on the D300 and D700, and it is rather easy to engage it unintentionally.</p>

<p>Bruce should have checked EXIF -- no way 102mm could be 18-55 kit lens, unless he meant 55-200 kit lens. To retain my faith in Nikon, I'm hoping this is exposure bracketing gone wild.</p>

<p>"<em>no way 102mm could be 18-55 kit lens, unless he meant 55-200 kit lens</em>."</p>

<p> Bill, I was actually thinking about the 24-120 that often comes bundled with the body.</p>

<p>Assuming it is not a bracket issue and if it happens with all lenses, this is a body issue. But maybe the seal is not tight when the lens is connected to the D700 and stray light is making weird adjustments to each shot. </p>

<p>Then again, it could just be a bad body. It happens sometimes. Don't know, just throwing out some thoughts.</p>

 

<p>Cindi Miller , Jan 04, 2009; 11:44 p.m.<br>

<em>

<p>been shooting since 1973, been to college, i'm an old school photographer. if i set the camera in manuel i would understand it better, but if i have all these settings on it, should i learn to use them?</p>

</em>Shooting in manual mode will help identify whether the problem is due to a mechanical malfunction vs. being due to the decisions made by the auto exposure mode. <em>

<p>the lighting never changed during these 8 shots. it doesn't make sense to me?</p>

</em><br>

The lighting doesn't have to change; changing your composition can affect the metering results.<br>

In your sample images that show overexposure, the dancers are not in the center of the frame. The ones where they are in the center of the frame show a better exposure. I would normally expect matrix metering to be smart enough to handle this but maybe it's not? Or maybe you're in spot metering mode?<br>

I just checked your EXIF data in that first shot. It was using SPOT metering. So that would definitely explain those over- and under-exposed shots. Not sure about those black shots, though. In any case, for a situation like this where there a strong contrast between the subject and the background, consistent lighting, and a changing composition, I'd definitely use manual exposure mode. It's nice to have the auto modes but you gotta choose the best tool for the job at hand.<br>

And definitely avoid spot metering with auto exposure in this type of situation unless you're going to keep your selected AF spot on the subjects at all times. (I'm assuming that Nikon's spot metering always uses the currently selected AF spot. I know on some cameras you can force the spot metering to use the center spot irrespective of which AF point is in use...just can't recall if my Nikons do this, too.)<br>

I doubt that your camera is broken.<br>

larsbc</p>

<p>It suddenly reminds me that I had a similar problem a few days ago with my D700: outside, street shooting, almost same image, exact same settings, A mode. All of a sudden, an overexposed shot. Or two or three. I checked the metadata in Bridge, and what do you know, the camera had changed from Matrix to Spot. On its own. I mean, you can't inadvertently change to spot on the D700, the little wheel up there is too tight. And I know I haven't changed it on purpose myself. What is even more worrisome is that I don't see any particularly dark area in the images to produce such overexposure.</p>

<p>It would help if you had given info on what lens you were using, but if you turn the ISO down to 6400 and as a suggestion, try the large spot meter. [if you have stage access, you might try to meter your hand under the stage lights. Then set the D700 on 'M' mode with the f-stop and as high a shutter speed you think you willl need.] That should put you in the ball park for better exposures.</p>

<p>From your sample images, you might consider something like a AF 180mm f2.8D Nikkor lens, too. You will get more 'dancers,' and less stage curtains in your photos.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

 

<p>One thing that might help also, and that you probably know already, but just in case: I always set my camera so that the shutter release only... releases the shutter. It does not focus. I leave the focus to the AF-ON button. And the AE/AF-L to exposure lock only, not focus. This way I can meter on one part, possibly lock metering if in auto mode, and focus on another part. I have complete control.</p>