D100 overexposure

[william_rubin]

I was shooting some shots at an outside social event, just

practicing with my D100 and a lot of the shots were overexposed. Is

it common for D100s to overexpose? Someone suggested I use the

aperture or shutter priority (depending on the shot) and then let

the camera do the rest. Is my camera?s metering system

off?

[mark_scheuern]

No, if anything, the D100 tends to underexpose a bit to prevent blown highlights. What metering mode were you using? Were you shooting JPEGs or NEFs? Using a flash?

[bruce_rubenstein___nyc]

This is a basic question, but how are you determining that the shots are overexposed? You can't judge by just looking at the picture on the camera's LCD. You need to check the histogram either on the camera, or bring it into Photoshop and check the image and histogram there.

[picturesque]

I also find the D100 to underexpose. I have heard that people have problems with overexposure when using flash with digital though, and some have resorted to using auto thyristor flashes. The times I used the D100 with flash, I was using studio flashes and determining my exposures manually, checking the histograms.

[macgregor_anderson]

Are the shots just plain overexposed, with the histogram pushed up to the right and nothing on the left? No real blacks at all?

 

The reason I ask is that often in bright sunlight I find the dynamic range of the camera (like slide film, and other digital cameras I've used) is just not enough for the situation. Bright areas get "blown out" just looking like white spots with no detail. I will often set my exposure compensation to -1 or even -1.7. This results in very dark shots but no blown highlights. In Photoshop, these shots can be rescued by selectively brightening the darker areas, or with curves, etc. You get some noise in the darker areas, but not too bad, and I personally find it less bothersome than lots of blown highlights.

 

If the shots are just plain overexposed, and you aren't shooting in manual mode, then something else is wrong. Perhaps your exposure compensation is set to +1 or +2 or something instead of zero. This is the +/- button (not to be confused with the flash compensation setting).

 

You might also check your metering mode. If you accidentally set it to spot or even center weighted and were metering a dark area in the center of your frame, then the camera would try to expose that as "middle grey" and probably overexpose the shot. It's best at first to use the average metering until you get comfortable with the camera's exposure.

 

If you do decide to use aperature or shutter priority, just keep an eye on what the camera is selecting. It's not hard to pick a shutter speed, for instance, that simply won't work with the aperature possibilities of your lens. Likewise, it's possible to pick an aperature that will return too low a shutter speed to avoid blur. I like using these settings, but you still need to pay attention to what the camera is selecting for you.

 

Hope this helps.

[william_rubin]

OK just got back from testing. I feel like an idiot but at least there?s nothing wrong with my camera meter. Let?s just say I figured out the problem.

 

I do appreciate all of the feedback though and it brought more questions to mind. I was testing in the bright sun w/ my D100 and the highlights were indeed blown out. If I matrix meter the shot then the highlights are blown out and the subject?s shaded face is really dark. If I spot meter the subject?s face, the face is lighter and looks good but the background and subject?s white T-shirt are even more blowout then with matrix metering.

 

Can you only fix this with fill-flash?

 

Thanks again for all of your help!

[macgregor_anderson]

If you play around in photoshop or whatever editing software you use, you will be able to selectively lighten areas. In Photoshop, I often use a technique where you create a new layer, fill with 50% grey, then use the brush at around 20% switching to black or white to lighten or darken. Seems to work better than the dodge/burn tool. If the area is too dark, you'll get noise, but you can improve the shot this way. There is also a shadows adjustment in CS at least that I think helps these things. I'm a lousy photoshop person, very new at it, but this really is pretty easy to do.

 

A fill flash might cause problems with the T-Shirt since it's the same distance as the face and will get hit by the flash equally. You could also use a reflector if you have someone to hold it, but that's kinda bad for spontaneous stuff. So I'd try to find the best balance with dodging/burning and a few blown highlights. And try a fill flash and maybe the shirt won't be too bad, since it's shaded presumably (though evidently not enough in this instance).

 

If you have a film body, get some color negative film with better range and maybe use it in these situations? That is, if photoshop can't help you out of the bind.

 

Good luck. And by the way, I'm a total novice, though I've read a bit on this stuff. Only been digital since January. So if you get conflicting advice, ignore mine.

 

mac

[nico_.]

This sounds like backlight with the subject's face in the shade in front of e.g. a bright sky. Basically all matrix meters seem to fail to expose such a situation properly simply because the meter is unable to know what part of the picture you want to have properly exposed. Use spot metering or CW metering close up to the subject for proper exposure.

 

Situations like the one you describe often exceed the dynamic range of a digital sensor so you have to decide what you want, sky or face. Sometimes you can rescue the picture afterwards on the computer. But what you really want is to make the light distribution more even (and decrease the overall contrast). If your subject is static you can put your camera on a tripod and take one exposure for the bright and one for the darker part of the image and blend them afterwards by simulating a graded neutral density filter. This is of course hardly possible for portraits. Here, fill flash or a reflector do the job. For fill flash with a D100 your choice of apertures is somewhat limited in bright light due to the minimum ISO and your maximum sync speed of 1/180s. A neutral density filter might help in order to be able to use large apertures.

[fotografz]

Fill flash is the most reliable answer, but not the only one when shooting digital.

 

You can shoot ambient bright scenes to underexpose a bit to protect those highlights and

let the darks go as they will... but do it in RAW format.

 

Then in the RAW developer, first lower the contrast to even out the tonal range, then use

brighten and exposure to lift the whole shot... don't worry about it getting anemic looking

in terms of color because ... you then restore the color by adding saturation, final step is

to set color temp and balance).

 

Here's an example from an Event I was pressed into shooting Friday even though I didn't

have a flash with me ... a company picnic with a clown who did face painting for the kids.

Very harsh, contrasy light.<div></div>

[fotografz]

Here's one from the picnic where the kids were trying to blast open "Sponge Bob" to get

the candy inside. Half the folks were in the shade ... and the other half in dappled sun,

including some fair skinned subjects (note girl on far right).<div></div>

[brandonhamilton]

My D100 meters almost perfectly, ECEPT when shooting a wedding. And even more specifically, only when shooting pictures of the groomsman in their tuxes, and here is why.

 

Your camera will try and expose the picture to what is called 18% grey. If you take a picture of something that is completely black, the camera will always over expose the picture if you shoot exactly to the cameras 18% grey recommendation, because it wants to expose the black as grey. Well, if your black turned to grey, your greys and whites will likely be blown out.

 

They key is to meter TTL on multi-patern, and then shoot with those settings -1 fstop. That usually properly exposes your blacks as blacks, and will not blow the highlights.

 

The same but exact opposite happens when shooting really white objects. The cameras meter recommendation will be an underexposure, because it wants to expose white as grey. If shooting a frame that is predomintantly white, you may have to expose at +.7.

 

The beauty of digital, is you can just let the camera under expost this shot by 1 stop, then simply correct in nikon capture later (shoot in raw).

 

Hope this helps.