5DIII Underexposure

[Dave410]

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I've had my Canon 5DIII for several months now and it seems to consistently underexpose the images. At first, they were very underexposed and someone here recommended a camera reboot which helped a lot, but even now they seem darker than they should on my carefully calibrated monitor. I've started using exposure compensation pretty much all the time now and always add 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop just to get in the ballpark before I take the images into Lightroom. </p>

<p>Any suggestions on how to fix this? Is there some precise way to measure how well a camera is exposing an image? I realize that most things in photography are subjective, but somewhere, sometime, a Canon engineer defined a "correct" exposure and it would be nice to see if my camera is close to that.</p>

<p>As an example, I'll post an image I took last week with zero exposure compensation on a nice, bright sunny day in Alaska. It seems underexposed to me.</p>

<p>Many thanks,<br />Dave</p>

<div></div>

[Dave410]

<p>Increasing exposure by .60 in Lightroom, with no other adjustments, makes the image much closer to what I actually saw.</p><div></div>

[paddler4]

<p>What metering mode did you use? If you had the camera set to a metering mode that included metering off the sky, it will underexpose because it is trying to set the image as a whole to neutral gray. </p>

<p>In this case, I probably would have started by spot metering off the grass. I wouldn't use the house because of the bright reflections on the windows. Another option, since this is open sunlight and your hand would be in the same lighting as the house, would be to spot meter off your palm and open up a bit. For a caucasian like me, one stop more open than my palm is usually about right.</p>

<p>I've had a 5D III for a few years, and the metering has been fine.</p>

[JosvanEekelen]

<p>Less than a stop correction? Ignore it, shoot RAW and adjust in Lightroom. </p>

[dcstep]

<p>The default metering for the 5D MkIII is "Evaluative", which akin the averaging, but not quite the same. The meter is looking at that scene that you've shown us and seeing the dynamic range difference between the relatively light sky and the dark grasses. It's leaning toward making the sky seem "medium grey". It's heavily weighted by the sky because it's more than 50% of the image. In any mode other than Automatic, you can adjust EV up or down by spinning the big wheel on the back of the camera. In this case, you'd add around +1EV., maybe just +2/3EV.</p>

<p>Turn on your highlight warning so that your Preview will show blinking pixels where you've blown out highlights. Shoot, check your Preview, then add or deduct EV as needed.</p>

<p>Using Spot metering is an alternative, but you need to understand how the meter works. It tries to make whites "Medium Grey" and then make dark greys look "medium grey." So a bright scene, like yours, will look dark, while a dark scene will be brightened more than the eye saw. If I'm in an Automated mode, like Av or Tv, I prefer to spin the EV wheel. Much of the time, like when I'm shooting birds-in-flight against variable background, I'll be in manual mode, taking a reading off something like my expected subject, as Dan suggests.</p>

<p>If you ever have shot in snow, maybe you noticed that most of your shots were under-exposed. This is because the meter tries to expose so that whites look grey. Depending on sun conditions, I'll at +1EV, sometimes more, in snow.</p>

[Dave410]

<p>Many thanks, guys. I normally shoot in Evaluative metering and I'm familiar with 18% gray. I just noticed this camera shoots noticeably darker than my previous Canon cameras and wondered if there was a way to measure it and/or correct it. I think I'll start playing with Spot metering and see how that works. Thanks again.</p>

[ruben leal]

One way to check your camera's metering is to take a photo of a gray card, and compare the histogram of this photo, in

your RAW converter, against a file containing only medium gray.

 

To do so, you should have an evenly illuminated gray card (actually any neutral tone of gray, from black to white will work,

as long as it covers the entire frame), and make a photo in P, Av or Tv mode, without applying any compensation. Turning

off the autofocus will make things easier, as autofocus may prevent you from taking a photo of a plain surface, and even

forcing the image go out of focus may help to obtain a smoother result.

 

Here's an old blog entry with some images of three cards, a gray one, a white one, and a black one, either with the

camera setting the exposure automatically, with manual exposure set to the EV indicated by an incident exposimeter, and

also using different compensations (while the text is in Spanish, I believe the images alone should give you enough

information to let you try it on your own): http://rubenleal.com/ETTL/ By the way, the gray card in my test had a focusing

assist pattern, which affects the reflected metering, as it adds white content which shouldn't be there, and that's the

reason why I now recommend using a plain gray card with the autofocus turned off.

[Robin Smith]

<p>I think your first shot looks fine. I virtually always shoot with + 1/3 or +2/3 stop on my 6D and I did with my 5DII too. The camera tends to expose for the highlights and is conservative with them, so often your pics will look underexposed unless you compensate. It's no biggie to have the exp compensation on pretty well permanently.</p>

[Dave410]

<p>Thanks very much. I'll check it out.</p>

[Ian Taylor]

<p>Shoot the same scene using all the metering modes till you find something that works for you.<br>

That shot isn't drastically underexposed at all IMO.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>Don't think this is big enough to be considered a fault/problem and indeed though the foreground is better in the second shot I prefer the sky in the first. I imagine the histogram looks ok. </p>

<p>The essential issue is that whilst the camera is trying to produce a mid-tone for the picture overall, it isn't evenly lit , and many scenes are like this, often worse. Lots of ways round it . If I notice that a sky is much lighter than the foreground I'll just tilt the camera down a little while metering before recomposing which will tend to give me a little more exposure. I don't feel I need to be measuring anything and keep the camera pretty much permanently on evaluative.</p>

<p>More sophisticated, and leading to a lighter foreground without a lighter sky, I'll either use a grad to resolve more extreme differences than your shot, or use a LR grad to either lighten the foreground a tad, or darken the sky in post. In essence I'm putting back the 0.6 stop you added to get a lighter result, but only on part of the picture.</p>

[paddler4]

<p>Dave,</p>

<p>I hope you will take this comment as helpful, not critical.</p>

<p>David H. beat me to the punch. The real issue is being able to read the exposure in a scene, decide how you want to expose it (not everyone will want the same exposure), and then learn how to use the several different metering modes in your camera to get to that exposure. As David said, there are usually lots of ways to get there.</p>

<p>For example, suppose you have a scene with a lot of snow. You'll have the same issue as the sky in your photo: if use use evaluative metering, the camera is going to want to make a weighted average of the scene neutral, which will give you gray snow. There are lots of ways to cope with this. For example, one is just to dial in some exposure compensation to brighten the exposure. This will work fine, but the amount of compensation will depend on the tonal mix of the scene (how much snow, sky and dark areas such as evergreen trees). Another option would be to spot meter off the snow in manual mode and open up a bit, say, 2 stops, as a starting point. You could also use the old trick I mentioned of metering off your hand. With some fiddling to get the precise adjustment, these three can all get you to the same exposure.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[Dave410]

<p>Thanks again, guys. Good info there. I'm familiar with a lot of it and try to put it into practice when I remember. For example, I was smart enough to dial in some exposure compensation when shooting grizzlies at Brooks Falls because that white water is just like white snow and I knew the camera would try to underexpose the image. In reality, I was just wondering if I had a defective camera since it often exposes darker than previous Canon cameras I've owned. I'm gathering that it's not an issue. Cheers.</p><div></div>

[john_tran14]

<p>If you know that it "consistently underexpose", then it is not a problem at all, and that is exactly why they have EC.</p>

<p>On the other hand, you can not expect the camera to give you exactly what you want ... it can not read your mind. In fact, it is you who need to know exactly what the camera will give, because you are supposed to understand how the camera works.</p>

<p>Moreover, I do not think the engineers at Canon try to adjust their cameras following some standards of the computer monitors (unless they have an exposure mode called "standard monitor viewing" or something like that). And for myself only, I think how I see the photos on my monitor also changes depending on my sitting position and lighting in my room. Will I adjust my computer chair and my computer room light following a fixed standard? Never.</p>

<p>Last but not least, I like the "underexposed" photo better than the "corrected" one. Now, Canon must figure out that camera is yours, not mine.</p>

<p>(Just my way of saying things, no hard feeling intended)</p>

[Trigger_Happy]

<p>Love the bear picture!<br>

I have my camera set to +1/3 as well when shooting AV. I have a 70D. I've tried different metering settings but I keep coming back to the same thing. It is not just me - Lightroom also thinks the camera is underexposing in many situations. <br /> If I use my flash meter in the studio and set my camera accordingly (which is of course in manual), there is no such issue. For me, I'm quite sure it is not a monitor thing (only at least).</p>

[john_tran14]

<blockquote>

<p> makes the image much closer to what I actually saw.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

This is an interesting idea (IMHO) and I try that many times. However, that may be not accepted by many. Really! If you take a shot of a scene at night, say 9PM or so, would you like to capture it as dark as you saw?</p>

[Dave410]

<p>Good points, John, and no offense taken. I understand that we usually want "pretty" pictures instead of "accurate" pictures, but accurate is a good place to start and we can then apply the pretty.</p>

<p>Thanks, Maria. Brooks Falls is an amazing place and I only wish I had had a longer lens. I was shooting with a Canon 70-200 f/4 L and I really have to crop in. A 100-400 would have been much better. Maybe next time.</p><div></div>