Help: Canon 600D Overexposure Mystery

Dear all

I shoot outdoor videos with a Canon 600D and an 18-50 kit lens, using only natural light. I've noticed that sometimes the image is completely overexposed while there isn't that much light coming into the lens at all. What I see on the screen is almost completely white, completely overexposed with hardly any image to be seen. But what's even crazier, if I haven't pressed the record button yet and instead half-press the photo shutter button, which causes the camera to focus in video mode, the image suddenly becomes completely normal. Then I see everything on the screen as you would expect. When I release the shutter button, the image turns completely overblown again. I haven't tried recording with the shutter button half pressed yet, I don't know if that works. But something is clearly not right here.

I've encountered this problem twice so far. I hope someone can help me further. What is going wrong here? I don't have any examples but I'll post them if I can get them.

Deense67u wrote:

Dear all

I shoot outdoor videos with a Canon 600D and an 18-50 kit lens, using only natural light. I've noticed that sometimes the image is completely overexposed while there isn't that much light coming into the lens at all. What I see on the screen is almost completely white, completely overexposed with hardly any image to be seen. But what's even crazier, if I haven't pressed the record button yet and instead half-press the photo shutter button, which causes the camera to focus in video mode, the image suddenly becomes completely normal. Then I see everything on the screen as you would expect. When I release the shutter button, the image turns completely overblown again. I haven't tried recording with the shutter button half pressed yet, I don't know if that works. But something is clearly not right here.

I've encountered this problem twice so far. I hope someone can help me further. What is going wrong here? I don't have any examples but I'll post them if I can get them.

Deense67.

A couple of preliminary questions:

1) What settings are you using?

2) Do you have another lens that you can try using?

3) Does this happen when taking still photos, or just when you are shooting videos?

4) You say that it happens, "sometimes:". Are there other times when it behaves, "normally"? Are you making any changes from one session to the next?

Steve Thomas

Set the camera to P mode, Auto ISO and try again. When not good result ,send it to repair.

You can also try in stiils, in the live view mode (onscreen). It uses the same expo meter as video. One of the two which camera uses.

If it is good, send it to repair the first one , yet.

Here is an explantion for higher models, but similar

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4256220

Good luck

Edit: You should half press everytime you take a picture , it is necessary for both focusing and exposure measuring, too.

ATTENTION

• Live View shooting does not work in Basic Zone modes.
• During Live View shooting, do not point the camera toward the sun. The sun's heat can damage the camera's internal components.
• Live View shooting will disable the following Custom Function settings;[C.Fn III 9 Mirror lockup] [C.Fn IV 10 Shutter/AE lock button][C.Fn IV 11 SET button when shooting].
• Under low light or bright light conditions, the Live View image might not reflect the brightness of the captured image.
• If the light source within the image changes, the screen might flicker. If this happens, stop the Live View shooting, then resume Live View shooting under the actual light source to be used.
• During Live View image display, if you point the camera in a different direction, it might throw off the correct brightness momentarily and the image might not look right. Wait until the image brightness stabilizes before shooting.
• If there is a very bright light source in the picture, such as the sun, the bright area might be blackened on the LCD monitor. However, the actual captured image will correctly show the bright area.
• If you set the [LCD brightness] to bright settings in low light, chrominance noise may appear in the Live View image. However, the chrominance noise will not be recorded to the captured image.
• When you magnify the image, the image sharpness may look more pronounced than it really is.
• Under the [Custom Functions (C.Fn)] menu, setting [Auto Lighting Optimizer] to [0: Enable] may display a darkly-exposed (set with exposure compensation) image brighter.