D90 Over-exposing

Kev R

Kev R

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Kevin
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Been away this weekend on a "Digital Masterclass" photography course, excellent by the way...

Comparing shots with other TOGS mine where all overexposed any highlights in the image where really blown. I checked my +/- EV settings to find that I already had -0.7 EV dialed in, to get the exposure correct and in line with the results others were obtaining (All Cannon shooters) I needed to set my compensation to -2.0 EV.

The only time I have adjusted this in the past was for some HDR stuff I was trying using bracketing, I did however make sure this was turned off. I reset my camera menu to defaults which already underexposes by 0.3 EV...everything was way overexposed again, every shot other than those taken with the -2.0 EV dialed in had huge peaks on the far right of each histogram!

Has anyone experienced this? Any suggestions to help would be appreciated...

The camera is still under warranty could it be a fault? What do I do to have it checked?

Is there any test that can be performed to check the correct exposure using a white card or anything?

Thanks....Kevin.
 
Not sure,how about the d-lighting maybe set to high........

Del.
 
I don't think so.
Canon's are well known for protecting the highlights.
If it was a dark scene overall this doesn't surprise me at all.
Can you post a couple of the images?
 
I assumed we were talking about a range of light situations. Not a specific scene that would require some exposure compensation to capture as desired. Would be good for the op to clarify.

Also the op says he dialled in -2 and replicated the results the canon shooters where getting. Surely this would rule out any superior highlight preservation?
 
Not really.
A very helpful pro that I've been in contact with had a look through a couple hundred of my shots and said that it looked like the exposures were all good where he'd expect his Canon to get "tricked" into underexposing.

They just work in different ways IMHO, what's important is to know what to do about it.

I'm not saying one is better than the other here, infact I can see the camera being careful of the highlights to be very useful, Nikons do let them blow out more readily.
 
Got any mates with the same camera as you? Compare results, try to see if it is just your camera that's doing it.
 
Have you checked menu option b4 'Fine Tune Optimal Exposure'.

This can be used to dial in a permanent exposure compensation in the range -1 to +1 EV.

I assume it should be 0 as standard, the manual does not say.
 
The Matt said:
Got any mates with the same camera as you? Compare results, try to see if it is just your camera that's doing it.
Click to expand...

My D90's nearly always had - .3 or .7 on the EV since I bought it. Not really a problem, it just annoys my friend with a D200 who can't take any shots without good light! :D
 
Did you do a reset of all your settings? I do the "double button press" on the top of the camera - plus the reset settings within the menu. Very first thing I do whenever I pick up the camera. My D90 works fine with exposure.
 
AlexW said:
I assumed we were talking about a range of light situations. Not a specific scene that would require some exposure compensation to capture as desired. Would be good for the op to clarify.

Also the op says he dialled in -2 and replicated the results the canon shooters where getting. Surely this would rule out any superior highlight preservation?
Click to expand...

Thanks AlexW

We where shooting the same scene with similar lenses, if I caught any sky in my shot it would just show up as blown out with the histogram showing highlight clipping all the time. -2.0 EV and all was well.

When I looked at the histogram from the cannon users it was very well ballanced, just what you would expect.
 
leaky5 said:
Have you checked menu option b4 'Fine Tune Optimal Exposure'.

This can be used to dial in a permanent exposure compensation in the range -1 to +1 EV.

I assume it should be 0 as standard, the manual does not say.
Click to expand...

Checked this...it should be +/- 0.0 EV
 
Nethawk said:
Did you do a reset of all your settings? I do the "double button press" on the top of the camera - plus the reset settings within the menu. Very first thing I do whenever I pick up the camera. My D90 works fine with exposure.
Click to expand...

Thanks Nethawk

I have performed the two button reset this evening so cant tell until tomorrow...
 
The Matt said:
Got any mates with the same camera as you? Compare results, try to see if it is just your camera that's doing it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Matt

Got no mates :'(!!!
 
It not something simple like you have it on spot metering?
 
Set the camera to reset (green button's) and shoot the first thing you see and lets look at the exif,a good shot would help.lol.....

Del.
 
Farno said:
It not something simple like you have it on spot metering?
Click to expand...

Thanks Farno...but no I have it on Matrix

del69 said:
Set the camera to reset (green button's) and shoot the first thing you see and lets look at the exif,a good shot would help.lol.....

Del.
Click to expand...

Thanks Del

I have performed the resets, will take a few shots tomorrow in daylight and pop them up for examination.
 
My D90 exposure is pretty much spot on all the time, its rare that I need to tweak it in ACR and if I do try I normally end up making it worse!
 
del69 said:
Set the camera to reset (green button's) and shoot the first thing you see and lets look at the exif,a good shot would help.lol.....

Del.
Click to expand...

OK I have taken a range of the same shot, same aperture and focal lenght etc. It is pretty obvious that the 0 EV is way off, anything with a bit of sky or white in it is going off the scale on the histogram.

0.0 EV
3856955450_2aaa47730c.jpg


-1.0 EV
3856956540_fb7e7349dd.jpg


-2.0 EV
3856168105_c6d634a97f.jpg


-3.0 EV
3856169021_92afff44ae.jpg
 
looks to me like the first is exposed for the subject, the final one is exposed for the sky! Like all cameras the D90 cant exposure for the full range that the eye can see, so its a question of deciding the most important part of the picture and exposing for that.

Dont see theres an issue with your camera.......try making more use of the ae lock, pointing the camera at the bit you want properly exposed, lock the exposure then re frame....
 
That look exactly the same as how my D60 takes pictures! Everything seems overexposed the whole time, Its pretty annoying I basically always have it on -0.3 / -0.7 EV, which then stuffs me over when I go into a slightly darker situation and forget! I'd probably say that -1.5 would have exposed the foreground properly in your pictures.
Its like it doesn't seem to be able to cope too well with certain lighting conditions / framing, so in your pictures the sky is a very small section so its like it basically ignores trying to expose it correctly and tries for the foreground, but still overexposes it (imo).
In these two pictures of mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/septh/3818337494/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/septh/3818333694/
The sky and subject are about a 50/50 split so the camera could expose it nicely (but still needing -1/3 and -2/3 EV).
The whole thing annoys me a bit but I've got to used to it now :p
 
If you set the camera on centre weighted and point it at the table does it still do the same, would be interesting to see if it is the sky that is causing the meter to struggle to expose the whole scene correctly.
 
What metering mode? If you are on spot, it will assume the thing you are "spotting" off is 18% grey and try to adjust exposure accordingly
 
I experienced this when I upgraded from a D70 to a D80 a few years ago. I found the D70's metering to be pretty much spot on all the time, but the D80 was generally always over exposed with any sky being blown out :(
In the end I would either shoot manually & purposely stop down from what the camera's metering advised, or dial in -1.0 EV.
After a bit of research I think I may have found the reason in that the D70's metering used a 1005 pixel sensor, where as the D80 used a 420 pixel sensor. Which I believe means that the D70 had more information from the extra pixel count of it's sensor to ascertain the correct exposure than the D80.
The D90 has the same 420 sensor.

Interestingly the day I bought my D300 (which uses the 1005 sensor) I purposely took some shots with the D80 before I went to exchange & then took the same shots with the new D300 so that I could have a comparison of the two cameras.
The difference was noticable, the D80 over exposed, where as the D300 was pretty much spot on.
I can now rely on the D300's metering all the time now without having to worry, & only ever have to make slight adjustments.
 
Dave Pickett said:
looks to me like the first is exposed for the subject, the final one is exposed for the sky! Like all cameras the D90 cant exposure for the full range that the eye can see, so its a question of deciding the most important part of the picture and exposing for that.

Dont see theres an issue with your camera.......try making more use of the ae lock, pointing the camera at the bit you want properly exposed, lock the exposure then re frame....
Click to expand...

Each of the images posted were exposed the same, basically I pointed the lens at the BBQ in the background, that was roughly center of the viewfinder. The plan was to use the same scene under the same conditions, only thing that was altered was the EV. I took another set either side of those displayed here which were exposed for the sky the metering in the camera just doubled the exposure time vs. those exposed using the scene displayed.

The give away is the histogram in camera, the highlights just peak off the scale in all but the -2.0 EV, surely this should not happen!
 
I just looked at the histograms in PS, quite interesting really.
Going by just the histogram, the second actually looks to have the best exposure.
It's obvious that there is more dynamic range in the picture than the sensor can handle, this is not a fault of the camera.
You can see why it's been left bright, it's just to save the shadow detail from blocking up.
 
cyclone said:
I just looked at the histograms in PS, quite interesting really.
Going by just the histogram, the second actually looks to have the best exposure.
It's obvious that there is more dynamic range in the picture than the sensor can handle, this is not a fault of the camera.
You can see why it's been left bright, it's just to save the shadow detail from blocking up.
Click to expand...

Thanks cyclone...

I still don't think it is right, the cannon shooters I was with the weekend had no such problems! Obviously the cameras handle exposure differently however they both want to achieve the same thing just do it in a different way.

The thing is they had very even well balanced histograms which reflected the scene being shot, I had overexposure with peaks off the scale on the far right (highlights) end of the chart! That can't be right...they were shooting at 0.0 EV and I was dialling in at least -2.0 EV to be comparable.

I just need to find a way to check it out for sure, I am fed up with taking shot after shot to compare. I may give it one more go using my wife’s D50 to compare with, I think this uses the increased pixel count sensor from the D70 for exposure.

Cheers
 
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