EOS 40D under-compensation

[squareframe]

greetings from the San Juan Islands, and aboard my sailboat!

 

one of my requirements is to visualize the subject in front of me, and render it faithfully upon exposure.

meaning, what I saw is what I get. from there .. I can experiment but I need to establish a baseline. when I use

the normal mode and +0 exposure compensation, I find the colours far too vivid and the subject overexposed. I set

the camera to 'faithful' mode which brought down the colours to my expectations, but I must exposure compensate

-1.33 stops to have the exposure match what I visualize.

 

my question is, if there is a way to afix the -1.33 compensation as 'normal', such that I can then have the

full-range of exposure compensation available. as it currently stands .. I am under-compensating so heavily by

default that it leaves me little to further bias my exposures downward.

 

in the film world, I could simply adjust my ISO-setting to a higher-value, such that it would force a lower EV or

exposure-value, and therefore the standard exposure would be more representative to what I expect, and what I

pre-visualize.

 

suggestions?

 

thank you ...

 

captain dan

[bobatkins]

In a word, "no".

 

Your only option in that regard would be to have the camera serviced and adjusted by Canon. They can probably alter the default metering (or correct it if it's wrong).

[edelson1]

Do you have the same issue when capturing both jpeg and RAW files? With a RAW image, you can bypass "styles" altogether and judge exposure alone (certainly in ACR, but I believe even using Canon's DPP you can elect to have it disregard in camera style selections). If you find that your exposures are satisfactory in RAW, you can use Canon's style editor to create your own "styles" to apply automatically when you wish to use them, including adjusting the curves applied to the image for in camera jpeg capture.

 

If your exposures are inaccurate even in RAW, then I would agree, a trip to Canon is in order.

 

Good luck,

Henry

[anov]

"I find the colours far too vivid and the subject overexposed."

 

You determined this by looking at pictures on the computer or the camera LCD? Camera's LCD is not

a good way to determine exposure, unless you're looking at the histogram too. Also did you print this

overexposed shot and still shows overexposure in the print?

 

Try shooting different subject, people/portrait for example. Does it still shows overexposure?

 

Camera's meter is not 100% accurate and certain adjustment are to be expected, but not consistently

1.33 stop over-exposure normally.

 

Failing that, a trip to the service center is your only remedy.

[squareframe]

thanks! I'll admit .. I haven't used RAW mode yet. and the reason is, that I want a good JPEG out of the box so to speak, that matches what I see. I have to admit, that Canon's exposure default's and 'vivid' mode default makes for great looking images. however, I am more interested in accurate images, where their standard mode and exposure is a bit over-the-top for me. the images look great .. no argument. they just don't establish something I can work with .. and that is what I see in the viewfinder.

 

my concern, vis-a-vis your suggestion, is that I want to retain the (lack of) shadow detail and make adjustments to reflect what I see. another consideration is to not use evaluative mode (which works really well, and much better than my EOS-3 and EOS-1v implementations) and try spot-metering and see if it is more accurate.

 

another response just arrived .. no, I have not printed the image. my first objective, is to establish a baseline as I mentioned, such that I can predict my results better, and then segue into experimentation and variations on a theme. it is important to me .. to understand what I am working upon, and ultimately making adjustments against. this is all before post-processing and printing.

 

once again .. thank you all for taking the time to respond to my question.

 

daniel taylor

[PuppyDigs]

Is your monitor of decent quality and carefully calibrated? Some years back I had a similar problem with my new 10D and

it turned out to be a monitor problem. I get pretty darn good exposures with my 40D and they look great on my Cinema

Display and print well too. The only time I have to touch EC is when I have an unusually light or dark scene.

[kasperhettinga]

I also have "problems" with monitors. My laptop screen is actually very close to how the print looks (if I use high-performance setting with maximum screen brightness). The LCD screen on the PC I sometimes used make images look 1-1.5 stop underexposed (so the opposite problem). So I don't use this PC screen anymore for photo editing (changing parameters for the monitor only made things worse).

[yakim_peled1]

Constantly overexposure? Under all lighting conditions? In all metering modes? If so, you must give it to a lab to get it fixed.

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.

[Marvin]

Good luck having it fixed. I bought my new 50D, took it to Bar Harbor for a week, discovered that it wasn't focusing

properly. Got home, sent it back to Canon, they "adjusted" it - no improvement. Now I'm waiting for the 2nd

adjustment. I'm not hopeful.

[keith reeder]

"I get pretty darn good exposures with my 40D... The only time I have to touch EC is when I have an unusually light or dark scene."

 

+ 1.

 

The 40D has an *excellent* meter, in my experience.

[yakim_peled1]

FWIW, I use evaluative metering and usually set -0.5 to -1 in bright (i.e. sunlit) conditions and 0 indoors and in

the dark. I go to + only in rare conditions. I wish I had a CF that could link the spot metering to the active AF

point.... :-(

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.