D7500 underexposing - bug or feature?

[Vasilis Delis]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

 

[David Lal]

Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

Have you tried centre-weighted metering yet? That's what I use most of the time unless it's some sort of scene/landscape/group when I might use matrix. I use a D750, not D7500.

I'd advise against auto-ISO, ADL and so on: all that auto stuff can lead to strange results (especially if one wants to have touch of fill flash as well). If I am photographing a white, yellow or pale pink flower I deliberately try EV + 0.3 as metering is calibrated for 18% grey which can lead to dull flowers.

JPEG versus RAW? A thorny old debate. for me, always RAW!

Just experiment. See what suits you.

 

[Howard V]

I’m wondering whether your new camera is at factory settings, or if something has been changed. I would start again, with a reset, just to see. I never owned a D7500, but my D7100 was always spot-on with exposure.

 

[NikonMan09]

I've had the D7500 since 2018, and I can definitely say that its metering tends to underexpose. I normally shoot available light with + 0.33 EC applied. Often I correct in post D7500 images to brighten up the exposure more. It is a quirk of the camera. I will add that the Nikon 16-80 F2.8-4.0 DX lens, and the 70-300 F4.5-5.6 AF-P and 80-400 F4.5-5.6 G lenses, which are the lenses I used the most with the camera, tend to underexpose, which adds to the effect. Fortunately, if you shoot RAW, the images are easily correctable, especially applying Active D-Lighting in post with NX Studio.

Here is an example:

I took this shot of Yosemite Falls where I was careless with my exposure compensation and got a strongly underexposed shot:

View: original size (external website)

In NX Studio (formely Capture NX-D), I was able to easily correct the exposure hell in this image by changing the Active D-Lighting (ADL) from None to High:

View: original size (external website)

I like this PP corrected exposure. I have found that images from the D7500 often correct very well for exposure mishaps by this method.

Despite the exposure quirks described here, I found that the D7500 produces outstanding image quality. I don't believe you got a lemon, as we Americans say.

Wishing you avoidance of exposure hell!

--
Fred
Shot Minolta SLR/DSLR and Sony DSLR 1978-2008. Switched to Nikon in 2009.

 

[SoCalAngler]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

Can you compare the two cameras with the exact same scene, framing and lighting and with the selected focus point over the spot?

If not then you are not doing an equal comparison.

Nikon's matrix metering system tends to put some emphasis on what is under the selected focus sensor. The D3500 has 11 AF points vs 51 for the D7500. The D3500 uses a 420 pixel sensor vs 180,000 for the D7500. So the D7500 may be a bit more sensitive with regard to the focus point and metering result though you may not notice that in many situations. I think much of your perceived differences may come down to the improved focusing and metering sensors rather than differences in the imaging sensore.

If the selected focus sensor is on something darker than middle gray you may get a bit of overexposure and if lighter than middle gray you may get some underexposure of that subject when using matrix metering.

Nikon also sometimes makes some tweaks to their metering system.

My own unscientific experience was that the D7500 matrix meter gave different results in some situations compared to the D3300/D3400/D3500. Also different than the D7100/D7200 and D5500/D5600. Not necessarily better or worse. Just different.

Every time I have acquired a new camera I have had to adapt slightly for some situations when using matrix meter though not for all. Backlit scenes, very large dynamic ranges, or scenes with specular highlights seem to be situations where I may be more likely to use some exposure compensation or switch to spot metering ( which has its own challenges).

Beware of using Active D Lighting (ADL) in other than high contrast high dynamic range scenes as it reduces exposure to try to preserve highlight detail and then I believe it boosts shadows a bit and may adjust mid-tone contrast when creating the jpeg. There are multiple level options for ADL and you can do ADL bracketing.

The D Lighting function in the Retouch menu boosts shadows but if exposure was too low that may reveal noise.

The improved focusing and metering systems ( more focus sensors, more coverage of the frame, better subject detection and tracking) of the D7500 make it a far superior all around camera compared to the D3XXX series, which were very good budget cameras.

Thom Hogan's books, including his D7500 book, go into the intricacies of how the metering system works.

He also has a new book, Mastering Nikon JPEGS, which goes into a lot of detail on using picture controls, metering, and white balance for getting optimal SOOC jpegs.

--
If cameras and lenses can have autofocus then why can't I?

 

[Vasilis Delis]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

Thank you all guys for your help. I will study thoroughly the new camera's settings and if needed I will come back with a rigorous comparison and samples. It is just that half of my happiness on the new acquisition went away, on the first impression/fear that the tiny 3500 shoots seemingly better than the beast...

 

[SoCalAngler]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

Thank you all guys for your help. I will study thoroughly the new camera's settings and if needed I will come back with a rigorous comparison and samples. It is just that half of my happiness on the new acquisition went away, on the first impression/fear that the tiny 3500 shoots seemingly better than the beast...

Understandable that when you liked something, the newer something that produces different results may be a disappointment.

The D7500 has the same sensor an EXPEED5 processor as the pro level D500. That also means there is much more that can be tuned compared to the D3500, which has fewer settings and an older EXPEED4 processor.

FWIW, which isn't much, until I started learning to tune SOOC jpegs using picture control adjustments with my D7100 and later bodies I preferred the SOOC jpegs from my old D40 over a wide range of situations.

I can how you may prefer the jpegs from the D3500, at least initially. Perhaps forever. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[bjn70]

I've never seen any real discussion of this but I think each camera/lens combination can be its own thing, especially with third party lenses. I had 3 bodies and multiple lenses so one day I photographed a gray card with every camera/lens combination and looked at where the peaks occurred in the histograms. Some of the combinations were right on, some were off by 1/2 stop either way, one combination was off a full stop. I would guess that this kind of thing is somewhat common.

 

[Vasilis Delis]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

Thank you all guys for your help. I will study thoroughly the new camera's settings and if needed I will come back with a rigorous comparison and samples. It is just that half of my happiness on the new acquisition went away, on the first impression/fear that the tiny 3500 shoots seemingly better than the beast...

Understandable that when you liked something, the newer something that produces different results may be a disappointment.

The D7500 has the same sensor an EXPEED5 processor as the pro level D500. That also means there is much more that can be tuned compared to the D3500, which has fewer settings and an older EXPEED4 processor.

FWIW, which isn't much, until I started learning to tune SOOC jpegs using picture control adjustments with my D7100 and later bodies I preferred the SOOC jpegs from my old D40 over a wide range of situations.

I can how you may prefer the jpegs from the D3500, at least initially. Perhaps forever. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[TheSoaringSprite]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

It's not the dynamic range, because the D7500 has higher dynamic range compared to your D3500:



Your problem is the metering settings. If you use Matrix metering, the camera will take the entire scene into consideration and try to expose for highlights and shadows, meeting somewhere in the middle. Spot and Center-Weighed Metering will meter for somewhere in the middle, so if your main subject is in the center of the frame and backlit, it will expose for the subject in the middle and blow out the highlights in the background. Highlight Weighed Metering will expose for the highlights in the frame, so if your subject has a bright light behind them, the camera will expose for the highlights and your subject will be dark.

If you don't like Matrix Metering, or if Spot and Center-weighed Metering is still too dark for you and you don't care about the highlights getting blown, you can use Exposure compensation to force the camera to overexpose or underexpose by dialing it to +0.3, +0.7, or -0.3, -0.7, etc. The plus will overexpose and the minus will underexpose.

Shooting RAW + JPEG would give you a more flexible file to work with. If your JPEGs don't turn out perfect, you can import the RAW file into Nikon's free NX Studio software and lift the exposure. Learning to post-process RAW files will give you the best non-destructive results, but it does take a little more time to learn and use. Personally I enjoy post-processing my RAW files, but I understand that not everyone is into it.

In fact I use highlight-weighed metering almost all of the time outdoors, because I know I can always lift the exposure during post-processing and still have all the highlights intact. I dial the exposure compensation to +0.7EV, so that the camera doesn't underexpose the scene too dramatically. I don't shoot JPEG however, only RAW.

One last thing to add: Every time I buy new equipment, it takes a couple of weeks for me to get to know it. Initially I tend to think "There's something wrong with this thing!!!" but in the end it's ME who needs to get to know it better. Give it time, explore all the settings. The equipment is highly capable, it's us who are limited in our knowledge in how to squeeze the most out of it.

--
http://www.dreamsourcestudio.com
@TheSoaringSprite

 

[Vasilis Delis]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

It's not the dynamic range, because the D7500 has higher dynamic range compared to your D3500:



Your problem is the metering settings. If you use Matrix metering, the camera will take the entire scene into consideration and try to expose for highlights and shadows, meeting somewhere in the middle. Spot and Center-Weighed Metering will meter for somewhere in the middle, so if your main subject is in the center of the frame and backlit, it will expose for the subject in the middle and blow out the highlights in the background. Highlight Weighed Metering will expose for the highlights in the frame, so if your subject has a bright light behind them, the camera will expose for the highlights and your subject will be dark.

If you don't like Matrix Metering, or if Spot and Center-weighed Metering is still too dark for you and you don't care about the highlights getting blown, you can use Exposure compensation to force the camera to overexpose or underexpose by dialing it to +0.3, +0.7, or -0.3, -0.7, etc. The plus will overexpose and the minus will underexpose.

Shooting RAW + JPEG would give you a more flexible file to work with. If your JPEGs don't turn out perfect, you can import the RAW file into Nikon's free NX Studio software and lift the exposure. Learning to post-process RAW files will give you the best non-destructive results, but it does take a little more time to learn and use. Personally I enjoy post-processing my RAW files, but I understand that not everyone is into it.

In fact I use highlight-weighed metering almost all of the time outdoors, because I know I can always lift the exposure during post-processing and still have all the highlights intact. I dial the exposure compensation to +0.7EV, so that the camera doesn't underexpose the scene too dramatically. I don't shoot JPEG however, only RAW.

One last thing to add: Every time I buy new equipment, it takes a couple of weeks for me to get to know it. Initially I tend to think "There's something wrong with this thing!!!" but in the end it's ME who needs to get to know it better. Give it time, explore all the settings. The equipment is highly capable, it's us who are limited in our knowledge in how to squeeze the most out of it.

Thank you!! This is the occasion that my ignorance seems so reassuring

 

[TheSoaringSprite]

Hi all. I have recently upgraded from a D3500 to a D7500, only to realize how good a sensor the D3500 has..... Something that I notice: when shooting a subject (jpg) with the slightest backlighting (nothing extreme, e.g. standing on my balcony, shooting a flower of mine and a bit of sky {no sun} is far back at the background), the camera tends to underexpose, either in auto or manual modes (auto is far worse). I used the same lens/settings with my D3500 and got very pleasing exposure and colors. The experience for such shots with D7500 is on the negative side. Even on-camera post retouching (increase d-lightinng) is not pleasing. Of course next thing to check is various metering modes. I will upoload pictures at some point and ask for your opinion. Until then I just wanted to know if anyone has similar experiences. Could it be a firmware issue? (I doubt, though) Could it be an implicit message by Nikon to just shoot raw and post-process anyway?

It's not the dynamic range, because the D7500 has higher dynamic range compared to your D3500:



Your problem is the metering settings. If you use Matrix metering, the camera will take the entire scene into consideration and try to expose for highlights and shadows, meeting somewhere in the middle. Spot and Center-Weighed Metering will meter for somewhere in the middle, so if your main subject is in the center of the frame and backlit, it will expose for the subject in the middle and blow out the highlights in the background. Highlight Weighed Metering will expose for the highlights in the frame, so if your subject has a bright light behind them, the camera will expose for the highlights and your subject will be dark.

If you don't like Matrix Metering, or if Spot and Center-weighed Metering is still too dark for you and you don't care about the highlights getting blown, you can use Exposure compensation to force the camera to overexpose or underexpose by dialing it to +0.3, +0.7, or -0.3, -0.7, etc. The plus will overexpose and the minus will underexpose.

Shooting RAW + JPEG would give you a more flexible file to work with. If your JPEGs don't turn out perfect, you can import the RAW file into Nikon's free NX Studio software and lift the exposure. Learning to post-process RAW files will give you the best non-destructive results, but it does take a little more time to learn and use. Personally I enjoy post-processing my RAW files, but I understand that not everyone is into it.

In fact I use highlight-weighed metering almost all of the time outdoors, because I know I can always lift the exposure during post-processing and still have all the highlights intact. I dial the exposure compensation to +0.7EV, so that the camera doesn't underexpose the scene too dramatically. I don't shoot JPEG however, only RAW.

One last thing to add: Every time I buy new equipment, it takes a couple of weeks for me to get to know it. Initially I tend to think "There's something wrong with this thing!!!" but in the end it's ME who needs to get to know it better. Give it time, explore all the settings. The equipment is highly capable, it's us who are limited in our knowledge in how to squeeze the most out of it.

Thank you!! This is the occasion that my ignorance seems so reassuring

No problem! Enjoy the learning process!

--

Dream Source Studio | Photography by J.P.

Welcome to Dream Source Studio, home to sports, wildlife, event, travel & landscape photography. Need help improving your own skills as an aspiring photographer? Check out the new photography tips section or feel free to e-mail me with your questions!

www.dreamsourcestudio.com

@TheSoaringSprite

 

[Argho]

I have noticed this with my D7500.

My guess :

- The D3500 is a consumer camera and default setting is for pleasing pics out of the box.

- The D7500 is a prosumer camera. It's metering is very conservative about blowing highlights. It errs on the side of caution.

If you take your D7500 pics and brighten them up a bit in post , you get really good results.

 

[Howard V]

I have noticed this with my D7500.

My guess :

- The D3500 is a consumer camera and default setting is for pleasing pics out of the box.

- The D7500 is a prosumer camera. It's metering is very conservative about blowing highlights. It errs on the side of caution.

If you take your D7500 pics and brighten them up a bit in post , you get really good results.