P520 exposure problem

I have recently aquired a P520 and on the whole am quite pleased with it.

I am still at the stage where most of my photos are taken on the auto setting.

The problem is that the auto setting seems to be unable to set the correct exposure when photographing bright beach scenes. My area has beaches with extremely white sand, and when taking a beach shot it is seriously overexposed. I have on occasion used the manual exposure setting at -2.0 and gotten good exposures.

The scene mode for "beach" produces identical results as "auto".

Question is: Shouldn't the "auto" setting be able to compensate for the bright beach scene or am I asking too much from "auto"

schuh said:

I have recently aquired a P520 and on the whole am quite pleased with it.

I am still at the stage where most of my photos are taken on the auto setting.

The problem is that the auto setting seems to be unable to set the correct exposure when photographing bright beach scenes. My area has beaches with extremely white sand, and when taking a beach shot it is seriously overexposed. I have on occasion used the manual exposure setting at -2.0 and gotten good exposures.

The scene mode for "beach" produces identical results as "auto".

Question is: Shouldn't the "auto" setting be able to compensate for the bright beach scene or am I asking too much from "auto"

Click to expand...

In short, you're asking too much of "Auto" mode.

Exposure Meters *ALWAYS* want to expose your shots for what's called 18% gray. It's a middle of the road sort of thing that works most of the time. Scenes like you are describing are waaay more reflective than that though and it "fools" your exposure meter into shooting with settings that reduce all that brightness to a bland, middle of the road 18% gray. You are smarter than your exposure meter however...

I'm not familiar with your camera specifically but a quick trip to the Googles told me everything I need to know. First off, you're going to have to leave Auto behind and shoot in "A"perture Priority, or one of the other semi-automatic modes, because you're going to need to to wrest control away from the camera. Time to learn to unleash the power of your 520; it's what you paid for, right? You want more artistic control over your shooting than what a paltry point and shoot offers so you're going to need to learn a few things...

First and foremost, you need to understand the Exposure Triangle; comprised of Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. You reeeeally need to understand all three of those principles and how they relate to one another in order to achieve proper exposure. Good exposure is the "heart and soul" of all photography. A Google search found the Reference Manual for your camera and page 64 explains "Exposure Compensation" a feature you will want to be familiar with once you fully understand the Exposure Triangle and shooting in Aperture Priority mode.

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Welcome to the forum

Horoscope Fish

Thanks for taking the time to help. While I am pretty familiar with the exposure triangle, I didn't realize that all auto exposures relied on the 18% gray average! I guess I need to reach for the exposure control whenever the scene is either very bright or very dark!

Cheers