Wrong Exposure - EOS 500D

I have my EOS 500D for a year now, and I am a little unhappy about it because it appears to be getting the exposures WRONG quite often. Perhaps I am a little slow concluding this (and too late for a warranty claim), but something isn't right.

Before the 500D I had a 300D and put 45000 shots through it, but the 500D is different and maybe I need to change settings.

Some photos are just too dark and I need to tweak the levels in photoshop to bring the thing to light. Some photos are too light and washed out, and again I need Levels in Photoshop to restore the "lost" detail.

I shoot with [P], usually choosing the centre point, exactly as the 300D, but whereas I could get 95per cent as I wanted them on the old camera, the 500D may be giving me less than 50per cent.

I know you can set 3 kinds of exposure, from averaged, centre-weighted and spot (unlike the 300D), and I have experimented with all 3, and found the problem seems to be the same with all 3.

It's not the lenses, because I carried the 17-85mm IS and the 80-300mm IS over from the 300D.

Hopefully there is a setting I can change or a technique I can do so that I don't need to use Photoshop for EVERY shot.

Thanks, Simon
--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

There are 4 metering modes: evaluative, partial, spot, center weighted average.

Try the evaluative mode. There isn't a perfect metering system but usually the evaluative mode will yield the less exposure problems.

--
DO NOT PANIC!
http://www.andmarios.com

that's what happens to me if I had been shooting pictures of the moon the night before, using spot-metering, and then forgetting to put the metering back to evaluative. I get many that are too dark or too light.

Just checked the specs, on dpreview, for metering on the 500D (which I have) and the 350D. 350D has partial only, using 9% at centre. The 500D has 9% Partial and 4% Spot. Are you using Partial or Spot on the 500D? If Spot, then switch to Partial toi get same as 350D. If already using Partial on the 500D, then I can only suggest you switch to Evaluative and maybe start with -1/3EV.

I use Evaluative metering and my experience is same as yours . Unfortunately too many shots come out with the wrong exposure and require heavy PP.

geekyg2010 said:

I use Evaluative metering and my experience is same as yours . Unfortunately too many shots come out with the wrong exposure and require heavy PP.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that reply.

Interesting, so it may not be me to blame.

I'm re-kindling this thread in the hope that someone can help a little further.

Is there a setting I need to change on my 500D to get the kind of exposure I want more often ?

Or is there a technique I should do to overcome this 'inaccuracy'?

Thanks

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

Please post a couple of shots, maybe it is you maybe it isn't, the jury is still out

Exposure may vary depending on the scene, the metering mode and compensation setting. There's no one size fits all setting to magically get a good exposure.

You'll need some experience with certain conditions and dial in the 'correct' compensation (or shoot M mode). Routinely check the histogram for exposure. A spike on the extreme right and blinkies means you're blowing highlights.

There's a difference though, between a good exposure and not blowing highlights. You can have a perfectly well exposed shot and still have the highlights blown, especially in contrasty (like sunny) conditions.

If you do expose for the highlights the shot often looks too dark and needs to be adjusted in post. There are few situations that require little adjustments, like sunset/sun rise and shooting with the sun at your back. There will be little to no shadows to speak of and the meter set to 0 EC will be able to keep everything from blowing unless there's something small and bright white in the frame.

Example, I've blown the light coming from outside through the windows (hidden by a strong vignette). I used fill in flash to get a good exposure none the less:



You'll need to use EC or M mode and underexpose compared to what the light meter says otherwise these spoonbills would've been blown:



This one is more extreme in that the white patch on the head is really bright. If you don't use M mode and expose for the highlights that patch will be completely blown and contain no detail at all. The camera doesn't see the small highlight as it only has 20 to 64 or so zones to meter. Imagine a sensor with only 20 pixels, it'll look really blurry, that's what a light sensor sees. It just averages out anything detailed and take a measurement:



Highlights blown on purpose, otherwise I'd only see well exposed highlights in an otherwise black image:

redsimon said:

geekyg2010 said:

I use Evaluative metering and my experience is same as yours . Unfortunately too many shots come out with the wrong exposure and require heavy PP.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that reply.

Interesting, so it may not be me to blame.

I'm re-kindling this thread in the hope that someone can help a little further.

Is there a setting I need to change on my 500D to get the kind of exposure I want more often ?

Or is there a technique I should do to overcome this 'inaccuracy'?

Thanks

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

Click to expand...

--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf

I've not been studying this too deeply, but I've got the impression the current Canon cameras weight the areas where they find focus lock more than they used in the older cameras. This make of course a lot sense, since we can fairly safe assume the main target is pointer by the AF, and this one usually wants to exposure properly. But if you focus lock and recompose the system may be fooled totally unless you lock the exposure at the same time.

The metering assume your target is close gray (some % I dunno), which is true in many majority of cases (like average human faces). But if you target is very light you need some negative EC, and if very dark some positive EC. And in high contrast scenes you need to lower the contrast setting and in low contrast make it stronger. So a lot of techniques and understanding require to take the correctly exposed photo straight from the camera - just like it was in the old good film days when using slides

Good photography skills help in getting good photos. And some luck helps. In the old good film days I was happy to get one very good photo from a roll of film - that's less than 5% of shots taken. And of course I got usually several very usable photos from a roll. Nowadays when I find time to shoot, I usually take tens of photos and select a few of those for presentation. I use RAW almost exclusively to give me some room to correct and improve these "best shots", since I do not think I've learned enough of setting in my cameras in the 30+ years I've taken photos

redsimon said:

geekyg2010 said:

I use Evaluative metering and my experience is same as yours . Unfortunately too many shots come out with the wrong exposure and require heavy PP.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that reply.

Interesting, so it may not be me to blame.

I'm re-kindling this thread in the hope that someone can help a little further.

Is there a setting I need to change on my 500D to get the kind of exposure I want more often ?

Or is there a technique I should do to overcome this 'inaccuracy'?

Thanks

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

Click to expand...

Thanks for these posts, clearly I will have to experiment.

I usually use the centre AF point to focus and take the readings. This doesn't mean that I frame my photos in this way, because I depress the shutter button part way, re-frame and then shoot.

However, on my 300D, when you pushed the shutter part way everything was frozen until you either released or pressed the button further.

Is it possible that the 500D is NOT holding its settings between part press and full press?

If this was the case it could explain why I am getting less good exposures than my previous camera - because the camera is taking its settings from a different place within the frame than I intended.

I already use green or grey areas close to my chosen target point when my subject is tricky, such as very dark or very light, and this technique used to be okay with the 300D. But if the 500D is moving when I re-frame and thus setting itself to somewhere darker (or lighter) than I intended, this could give me the unintended exposures.

Often I shoot cars at Classic Car events - very difficult shiny things with flat surfaces exposed to the the bright sky (which they reflect), and vertical surfaces which sometimes are completely in shadow. HDR is a problem, but I will usually try to shoot for the biggest area of similar colour/light and process for the lighter or darker as required. (see http://www.simoncars.co.uk )

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

redsimon said:

Thanks for these posts, clearly I will have to experiment.

I usually use the centre AF point to focus and take the readings. This doesn't mean that I frame my photos in this way, because I depress the shutter button part way, re-frame and then shoot.

However, on my 300D, when you pushed the shutter part way everything was frozen until you either released or pressed the button further.

Click to expand...

redsimon said:

Is it possible that the 500D is NOT holding its settings between part press and full press?

If this was the case it could explain why I am getting less good exposures than my previous camera - because the camera is taking its settings from a different place within the frame than I intended.

Click to expand...

It's called exposure lock. Look in the manual of your camera in nthe C.Fn custom function menu, you can setup the buttons to do different things. By default the shutter half press starts metering and is not locked. The * button locks exposure. You can change this behavior.

redsimon said:

I already use green or grey areas close to my chosen target point when my subject is tricky, such as very dark or very light, and this technique used to be okay with the 300D. But if the 500D is moving when I re-frame and thus setting itself to somewhere darker (or lighter) than I intended, this could give me the unintended exposures.

Often I shoot cars at Classic Car events - very difficult shiny things with flat surfaces exposed to the the bright sky (which they reflect), and vertical surfaces which sometimes are completely in shadow. HDR is a problem, but I will usually try to shoot for the biggest area of similar colour/light and process for the lighter or darker as required. (see http://www.simoncars.co.uk )

Click to expand...

Using M mode often is a better bet as it is more consistent from shot to shot. If most cars have chrome and other shiny parts and don't want to blow highlights, the exposure will be the same for all cars under the same lighting. Set once and fire away

--
Kind regards
Imqqmi



http://www.pbase.com/imqqmi

The DSLR jargon cheatsheet:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdf

Sunset blending tutorial:
http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf

half way press only locks focus. the camera recalculates exposure when you fully depress the button.

you want exposure lock.

It's possibly the camera. I have the 500D/T1i and mine always seems to get the exposures right on (I use evaluative most of the time). I also have the 400D/Xti, and I always use positive EC with that one, as it seems to underexpose most shots by about 1/2 stop. Because I use both cameras regularly, I believe that the 400D/XTi underexposure is not a user error because I use evaluative metering on both and, presumably, I would be making the same user errors with the 500D/T1i, and I don't ever notice underexposure on the 500D/T1i. I suspect that my 400D has an underexposure problem. The OPs 500D may have the opposite problem.

I feel a bit of a twit now, because the fault is MINE.

I had assumed that when I pressed the shutter button part way then it locked EVERYTHING; it locked exposure and focus to the selected point until I either released the button or pressed further to take the photo.

Yesterday I observed that this is NOT the case.

Even with the shutter button pressed part way, I observed the exposure setting changing as I reframed the shot. Now I understand why so many of my shots are wrongly exposed, because the camera is exposing for a point that I didn't intend; it is exposing for something lighter (or darker) than the intended point.

The solution is to press that star ' ' before I reframe and shoot. I find that quite fiddly to do, but the results are now as I intended.

I have re-read the manual to confirm this is what is happening, and it certainly isn't clear from their text, but I am now convinced of my own misunderstandings.

Silly me.

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

needs and allows continuous learning.
That's what makes it so interesting IMHO

redsimon said:

I feel a bit of a twit now, because the fault is MINE.

I had assumed that when I pressed the shutter button part way then it locked EVERYTHING; it locked exposure and focus to the selected point until I either released the button or pressed further to take the photo.

Yesterday I observed that this is NOT the case.

Even with the shutter button pressed part way, I observed the exposure setting changing as I reframed the shot. Now I understand why so many of my shots are wrongly exposed, because the camera is exposing for a point that I didn't intend; it is exposing for something lighter (or darker) than the intended point.

The solution is to press that star ' ' before I reframe and shoot. I find that quite fiddly to do, but the results are now as I intended.

I have re-read the manual to confirm this is what is happening, and it certainly isn't clear from their text, but I am now convinced of my own misunderstandings.

Silly me.

--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )

Click to expand...

Remember that evaluative metering plus one focus point = evaluation at that point.
--
http://www.pbase.com/billko

then report back.

I want more control over the shot than full auto mode, because I want to select precisely the focussing point and the exposure point.

In the past (with my EOS300D) it seemed to me that focus and exposure points were the same, but I've learned differently now !!! (some people are slow learners)

Now I've worked out about using the ' ' to freeze the exposure before re-framing, AND also that I can set a focus point that mkay be different to the one I set the exposure on. This is great and I am getting more "hits"

On the subject of using full auto, I have experimented with using LiveView and have been impressed with the results. In can be tricky moving the little square around the picture and pressing the ' ' until the square turns green, then re-frame and shoot, but often the result is very good indeed.

LiveView proves valuable too when I cannot physically get my eye to the eye-pice, say when the camera is on the floor, or my shadow gets into the picture. However, I can't see the screen in bright sunlight, and I do have a preference to use the eye-piece.

But progress is being made.

Thanks
--

Passionate about cars and lovely places, and trying in vain to use a creative eye and a carefully set up camera to capture both. ( http://photos.redsimon.info , http://www.photoboxgallery.com/redsimon )