autoexposure driving me nuts!

[sasc]

I dont have complaints about focus or speed but the exposure on this camera drives me nuts. It seems to vary to whatever it wants. It will take a normal shot so dark you cant fix it, then next time everything will be blown out. It also blows the whites just about no matter anything I do. I have it set to low contrast. I especially notice this with the 28-128 and 75-300 lenses. Do L lenses do this too? Ive sent the camera in for recalibrating and it seem to me that the exposure is worse now. If I have to walk around carrying a white or grey card to meter off of every shot I take I am not going to keep this camera. How do you all deal with this? Ive never had another camera that acts so erratic and difficult with the exposure settings.

[KHogan]

Which mode(s) are you using that is giving you this much disparity between shots? Are you using the "creative" modes or those other ones that do absolutely everything for you? Also what metering mode(s) are you using? I haven't used those easy shooting modes (or whatever they're called) yet but I've been shooting with all of the creative modes from Program mode to Manual with the 28-105 and 50 1.8 lenses and haven't run into those kinds of problems.

When I first started using the camera, I went immediately to the manual mode because that's what I was used to shooting with film (never had an auto-everything camera before). At first I did find that the camera seemed to underexpose slightly but it was consistent from shot to shot. Then I played a bit more with the metering modes and in learning the camera a bit better things seemed to clear up. Now I get very good exposure. If I'm shooting a scene that has a wide range of brightness (i.e. very bright and very dark zones) I've been resorting to spot metering off the subject and manually setting the desired exposure from there.

I have also rented a 75-300 non-IS lens on a couple of occasions and have gotten fairly consistent results with this lens. In the end, some of those shots were slightly underexposed but this was in the first few days I had the camera and I didn't touch the metering modes at all, I shot everything with evaluative metering.

What kinds of shots are you trying to do where this is happening or is it happening regardless of the scene/subject matter/etc.?

I know this doesn't help solve your problem but maybe with a bit more information we could come up with some theories or solutions? I don't know.

Kharim

[sasc]

I have the problems with creative modes. In fact the simple ones usually work better but i rarely use them. It seems to happen in all modes. I was used to using the spot on my Pro90 and have no trouble with that.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

sasc,

Check out these threads in the Rob Galbraith's D30 forum:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000775

http://www.robgalbraith.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000781

Canon techie, Chuck Westfall describes how to test exposure with a q14/q13 card.

Regards,

Roger

[KHogan]

Just re-reading your initial post and wondering if you're getting such varied results on the same images. In other words, have you tried setting up the camera on a tripod and shooting the same scene using different modes/settings with your camera? And if so, in such a case, are the resulting images all over the map in terms of exposure?

Also, I don't know if you have access to this but maybe if you can rent a lens or two (perhaps L type lenses since you ask about those) and do a similar test using one fixed setting and changing the lenses to see what kind of results you get.

I'd try that. If you still get exposures all over the map, perhaps it's possible that your camera is a bit of a dud. In that case it should be easy enough to bring in the "evidence" (those test shots in controlled conditions) to Canon and have them replace the camera.

Even better, if you have access to another D30 (a friend or the store you purchased it from), you could also take the same shots with the same settings and lenses but on two different cameras.

None of these ideas really answers your initial question but it might help you determine the cause of the problem (i.e. lenses, camera, etc.).

Just some thoughts...
Kharim