Underexposure, my problem or camera's?


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IsenGrim

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Jan 28, 2008
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Im using a 450D

and recently my shots have been constantly 1ev under. I have to bump up all of it in lightroom.

But i have no idea if it's my fault or the camera's coz the subject is (mostly) white



even those without white subjects are 1 under. BUT someof the pictures turn out right. So im not sure if its my fault or the camera's fault. Anyone? I just sent my camera in to fix the broken shutter motor before this shoot. (has about 50000 shots on it) so i was also suspecting its the servicing that caused this as i never had this problem ever before i sent it in.

Camera: 450D
Flash: 580ex2 with omnibounce 45/60 degrees upwards
mode: AV
compensation: 0ev
metering mode: evaluative
 

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I'm not so good at events/indoor shoot but let me try explaining to you.

From what you have mentioned about your flash set-up, it means you're using bounce flash.
I suggest that you use manual settings to set it to a stronger flash.

If you set to auto setting, I'm afraid that the flash may not be strong enough to bounce on the subject.
The metering from the flash mostly set it to direct flash setting.

Hope you can understand.
 

actually i understand my flash metering, and its not like you said. and im not using bounce flash.

im using 45/60degrees for featherlight. if there's bounce, its a bonus, if not, featherlight works its magic.

anyway auto flash metering works on subjects. it will always try to fire enough flash to "correctly" light the subject (canon's flash can auto detect that the flash is not direct and adjust its metering modes). then again, i never encountered this previously as my flash always lit the subject correctly. then again, i never had white subjects.. and btw, the ceiling is low. like our normal ceiling. cannot be not enough strength to bounce off that. lidat no need to call 580ex le. call 20ex
 

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Are you shooting raw? Based on your JPEG exif, it states that the picture has been processed through lightroom and i believe you probably worked it from CR2 files.

Check whether your lowest ISO is 200 or 100. If you discover it is 200, sad to say, you have unfortunately underexposed past shots by turning on highlight tone priority.

Highlight tone priority only works on jpegs by having the picture being underexposed 1-stop, and pulled up by some sort of algorithm and in-camera action. The raws would be underexposed 1-stop.
 

Camera and flash can't always calculate the right amount of flash, hence you can adjust the flash compensation and re-shoot.

With more white, you also may have to adjust your exposure. If you've shot snow scenes or all white scenes, the camera will get fooled and you'll end up with grey snow. You'll need to up the exposure to account for this.
 

Are you shooting raw? Based on your JPEG exif, it states that the picture has been processed through lightroom and i believe you probably worked it from CR2 files.

Check whether your lowest ISO is 200 or 100. If you discover it is 200, sad to say, you have unfortunately underexposed past shots by turning on highlight tone priority.

Highlight tone priority only works on jpegs by having the picture being underexposed 1-stop, and pulled up by some sort of algorithm and in-camera action. The raws would be underexposed 1-stop.

oh no, im not shooting raw. processing a full set of raw wedding day photographs will kill me (i have another day job) I shot on jpeg. and i exported this from lightroom conveniently to resize it as i was working on them right now. This is the original exposure i imported from the camera. Eh, I don't use highlight tone priority coz i have no idea what izzit for.... and my minimum iso is 100.
 

interesting, up this thread i wanna know too
 

if u think the metering is off, u can send it back to canon to be fixed. but before that, maybe can get someone using same camera to shoot exact same thing to see the difference if any. different models often meter differently. lens make a difference as well. my camera meters differently when i use my zoom vs my prime. i normally overexpose it by 1/3 stop nowadays.
 

Its your problem that is causing the underexposed..
 

cameras these days tend to err on the side of caution, i.e. slight underexposure to avoid clipped highlights.

it could be that.
 

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