Does the EC show up in the EXIF?
Consistent ongoing underexposure
- Thread starter jrleo33
- Start date
Does the EC show up in the EXIF?
Yes, the EXIF information always shows my EC adjustments.
But does it show this mysterious EC change?
I am not explaning this problem real well. If you go back to the first post, and re-read it, you will see the the mysterious EC change is not mystereous, but is required for the camera to return a well exposed photo. If I put the camera on auto at start up, point and shoot, what will come back is an underexposed photo, regardless of the lighting conditions. Regardless, if I am shooting in aperture, shutter, or auto prioroty with EC at zero, the photos will come back underexposed. My concern then, is I should be able to shoot with EC at zero and get a well exposed image. So my camera's full time EC zero is +1, instead of zero. So I ran a test with the EC set on +1., and the camera on bracket (1) under, (1) over, and (1) normal, and the D600 compensated for +1. I have three images (1) stop apart for my HDR photos. This Thread forced me to learn more about the D600, and bracketing, and I thank you for your interest and help.
jrleo33, first--please consider going back to post 19 (or thereabout) to edit something you wrote. In your initial post, you mentioned having problems with underexposure then around reply 19 you said it was overexposure.
Okay...now to the nitty-gritty. ::what:: I don't know if this info will help or not, but I looked through the digital owner's manual for the D600. If you have the manual, please turn to page 226 where it discusses fine-tuning the metering. For your convenience, here is the PDF. If you are going by the PDF page numbering, you will want page 252 (which is page 226 of the owner's manual). I will also attach a print screen--I hope it will be large enough for you to read.
According to this info, there is a custom settings menu where you can override the default settings for matrix, center-weighted, and spot metering. You might want to check and see if the matrix metering setting has been changed. If not, you might want to consider changing it to accommodate for the underexposure problem. Supposedly the 2 button reset will not affect whatever is programmed in there (so says the manual). To quickly access that part of the custom menu, it is b5.
Nikon D600 Owner's Manual PDF: http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/dslr/D600_EN.pdf
Okay...now to the nitty-gritty. ::what:: I don't know if this info will help or not, but I looked through the digital owner's manual for the D600. If you have the manual, please turn to page 226 where it discusses fine-tuning the metering. For your convenience, here is the PDF. If you are going by the PDF page numbering, you will want page 252 (which is page 226 of the owner's manual). I will also attach a print screen--I hope it will be large enough for you to read.
According to this info, there is a custom settings menu where you can override the default settings for matrix, center-weighted, and spot metering. You might want to check and see if the matrix metering setting has been changed. If not, you might want to consider changing it to accommodate for the underexposure problem. Supposedly the 2 button reset will not affect whatever is programmed in there (so says the manual). To quickly access that part of the custom menu, it is b5.
Nikon D600 Owner's Manual PDF: http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/dslr/D600_EN.pdf
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You post provided what I was looking for, a way to fine tune the (3) shooting modes. All (3) were set at zero. This means the camera out of the factory was set at -2/3s of a stop under, which was causing the underexposures. I reset all (3) to +4/6ths, and will wait until daylight to test the changes. Further reading also disclosed, that if I make a change to EC for lighting conditions, and then use the bracketing, the camera will take into account the EC change, and provide correct bracketing exposures. Thank you very much for your help.
Looking at the camera's LCD with no EC, the images are too dark, which indicates the underexposure. To modify or lighten the image, you add time to the exosure or + EC.
Based on this info, *if* the LCD's display can be set to display the images brighter or darker, that might be another option to rule out. I couldn't find anything in the owner's manual when looking quickly, but in the back of my mind, I am thinking it is an optional setting. How do the images display on a calibrated monitor?
Looking at the image in the LCD is --worst-- way to judge exposure. Use the histogram instead.
My images look very good once finished with PP on both my monitors. However, when you send a JPEG to another monitor via the Internet, life becomes a "box of Chocolates." I can remember when I joined this Forum, the first (4) uploades were a bit washed out, and i noticed most images from other members were a bit washed out. I began to increase density, and the photos began to look better.
The Histogram will show if one is crowding shadows or hightlights, and I use all the time when shooting JPEG. Shooting RAW allows far more leeway to recover detail in shadows, and recover blown highlights, more so using the histogram in Lightroom than the camera.
Use the histogram on the camera and you will quickly see if you will have shadows that will be unrecoverable or totally blown-out highlights. Getting exposure correct in-camera, whether shooting raw or JPEG, is more important that trying to correct it in post.
On my D3300 also the camera underexposes. When I over expose by a stop, the histogram shows over exposure, but in post I can shift that histogram 1EV left, then there are no blown areas and the histogram is perfect.
I think that the Nikon consciously built this in the software, so that a stop of margin left to cater to a slight inadvertent over exposure.