Can't seem to get Exposure correct on my 30D

[Ursie]

Hey all, I'm gonna post a few photos with exif data intact in the hopes that someone can help me figure out what I am missing. This is typical of how my shots turn out, they are almost always underexposed. usually nice and sharp, but under exposed. Can anyone take a look and offer suggestions? They are completely unedited. Of course, I can take em into PS and edit away, but I'd like to get shots that are more usable straight out of the camera.
I typically shoot with available light and I know flash would help, but it seems like there is more I am missing.

Go down a few posts for the photos with exif data

[-MasterChief-]

what mode are you using? Av, Tv? i find that on my 30D that i have to bump EC by +1/3 to get "correct" exposure. maybe its the 1.6 crop thats causing a bit of the underexposure? who knows, but i do know that i have to bump EC by a few on my 30D.

FWIW, my 5D's exposure is spot on.

[Ursie]

I mostly use AP

[In2Photos]

IT looks to me like pics 1 and 3 might be fooled by the brighter backgrounds. Doesn't explain pic 2 though. This is where fill flash really helps. We need more EXIF info though. Can you post the EXIF from these shots? Also, have these shots been processed at all?

what mode are you using? Av, Tv? i find that on my 30D that i have to bump EC by +1/3 to get "correct" exposure. maybe its the 1.6 crop thats causing a bit of the underexposure? who knows, but i do know that i have to bump EC by a few on my 30D.

FWIW, my 5D's exposure is spot on.
I have to do the same on my XT. IT is always on EC +1/3 to 2/3 when shooting in Av.

[cosworth]

In2Photos is right. The varying background/foreground issues here highlight how many people new to photography assume the little computer inside knows best. Not so.

I shoot in M mode. All the time. Every shot demands EC plus or minus. It's easier on my body to click a wheel with one finget than have to press a button and click a wheel for EC. Using M mode your brain is the best computer possible. You'll see the meter right even, but you'll see a birght background and know tht you can push it a 1/3 or 1/2 or even full stop and not bloew it out but still getting he right exposure of the foreground.

Switching from AV or TV mode hell to M heaven takes about 2 days. You can do it in a weekend. You're internal guesstimation engine will come to learn the camera and how it meters. You'll chimp less, have less to fix in software and you'll end up shooting faster actually.

Try it.

[Ursie]

I saved it in the 'save as' fashion which I believe has the exif in tact but I'm not sure how to go about posting it so the data is available. Help please

[In2Photos]

I saved it in the 'save as' fashion which I believe has the exif in tact but I'm not sure how to go about posting it so the data is available. Help please
Hmmm. Somewhere along the line it got stripped. It might be your photo hosting site.

[Ursie]

Any reccomendations for a different site. I'm using photosite at present

[StewartR]

I saved it in the 'save as' fashion which I believe has the exif in tact but I'm not sure how to go about posting it so the data is available. Help pleaseAny reccomendations for a different site. I'm using photosite at presentAre these photos the same size as when you uploaded them to PhotoSite?

I use SmugMug (http:stewartr.smugmug.com) for my hosting, and that has a facility whereby it automatically creates multiple sizes of each image you upload, to make it more convenient to share them. BUT - their resizing process destroys the EXIF data. So for example this original shot does have EXIF data:

http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-O.jpg

but these resized versions do not have EXIF data:

Tiny
http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-Ti.jpg

Thumbnail
http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-Th.jpg

Small
http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-S.jpg

Medium
http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-M.jpg

Large
http://StewartR.smugmug.com/photos/147263993-L.jpg

[Ursie]

Okay, I changed over to photo bucket and it seemed to resize them down. But how do you get them somewhere where it doesn't strip the exif stuff. Where did you place that first picture from?

[Ursie]

Ooooh, I went to smugmug and I think I got it now. Here they are again!
http://ursula-scrapgirls.smugmug.com/photos/151493615-O.jpg

http://ursula-scrapgirls.smugmug.com/photos/151493536-O.jpg

http://ursula-scrapgirls.smugmug.com/photos/151493483-O.jpg

[Ursie]

OK, next question, why are they so huge? What size do you typically save them as? I did these as 5x7 at 300 dpi

[StewartR]

SmugMug is down for scheduled maintenance for the next few hours, so I can't comment on your pictures just yet. Meanwhile...

For photos that I want to show here, I typically resize to 800 pixels on the longest side (the POTN limit) before I upload them to SmugMug. I know SmugMug's "Large" version will also be 800px - the others are Medium=600, Small=400, Thumbnail=150, Tiny=100, by the way - but I resize to 800px so that:
(a) I know exactly what it will look like;
(b) I don't have to worry about quality issues such as (for example) JPEG artefacts arising from SmugMug's resizing;
(c) the EXIF data is preserved.

I'm also starting to use SmugMug as an archive/backup by uploading version at their original resolution (i.e. 3000+ pixels on the long side). But that's not so helpful for picture sharing, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Incidentally I would encourage you to think of the size of your pictures in terms of pixels rather than inches. The conversion is pretty straightforward arithmetically (e.g. 5"x7" @ 300ppi = 1500x2100 pixels), but pixels are what comes out of your camera and it's important to ensure that you don't change the number of pixels accidentally. Reducing the number of pixels means throwing away information that you can never get back. Increasing the number of pixels means reducing the picture quality and this may be irreversible.

[Ursie]

Thanks Stewart, very helpful information. By the way, out of my camera, photos seem to come 72dpi, is that standard or is that some setting I ought to change?

[StewartR]

By the way, out of my camera, photos seem to come 72dpi, is that standard or is that some setting I ought to change?It's irrelevant unless/until you want to print, and sometimes not even then.

If you have a picture that you want to print at say 6"x4", and you want 300ppi (for best quality), then you know you'll need at least 1800x1200 pixels. You could change the picture's settings to 6x4 @ 300ppi instead of say 25x16.7 @ 72ppi. But it won't change the actual picture which is still 1800x1200. And most software will ignore this setting anyway and print the picture at whatever size you tell it to.

[In2Photos]

Thanks Stewart, very helpful information. By the way, out of my camera, photos seem to come 72dpi, is that standard or is that some setting I ought to change?
First things first. DPI/PPI means diddly squat on the web. It is only useful when printing. A pixel is a pixel is a pixel. you only have so many on your screen. Changing the PPI (pixels per inch) doesn't alter the number of pixels in your photo. For instance, if you have an image that is 800 x 600 pixels @ 72 ppi you still have 800 x 600 pixels. If you change it to 300 ppi you still have 800 x 600 pixels, right? Right!

Now if you have 800 x 600 pixels @ 72 ppi for a print you will have a 11.11 x 8.33 inch print, but at 300 ppi you will have a 2.67 x 2 inch print. Make sense?

The forum has a limit of 800 pixels to either upload or embed. If you want to display larger then this you must link to your shot, meaning others will have to click to see your picture. I typically display my shots at 800 pixels wide for landscapes and 600 pixels tall for portraits. Why? Because those sizes will fit the majority of people's screens that view my photos. If you notice I only mentioned one side of the image. My other side will vary depending on my crop but my two constants are dependent upon the orientation of the photo.

[Gujustud]

Switching from AV or TV mode hell to M heaven takes about 2 days. You can do it in a weekend. You're internal guesstimation engine will come to learn the camera and how it meters. You'll chimp less, have less to fix in software and you'll end up shooting faster actually.

Try it.

Spot on. Back in my photography courses, they made us shoot in M all the time. Then I stopped shooting for a while, and went back to Tv/Av (ie: I became lazy). Recently however, I started forcing myself to use M, and now that i'm use to it again, I can't believe why I ever shot in Tv/Av mode. I've noticed a hella difference in my shot exposures by this small change.

[buddy4344]

What setting is the 30D light meter set on? I have made the mistake of using the spot meter and picking the "wrong spot". Last week I was at a golf event, Tiger and M. Jordan were playing golf together. early morning suna dn shadows, dark skin and both were wearing white shirts/tan slacks. exposure and metering nightmare!

[Ursie]

I've played with spot, center-weighted and the other two. I still need to play a bit more to determine which I like. I did go out and shoot M today and got much better results. But I was amazed by what the camera seemed to think was a correct exposure but totally was not.

[StewartR]

But I was amazed by what the camera seemed to think was a correct exposure but totally was not.Why were you amazed? Ask yourself this: How does the camera know whether you are pointing it at a polar bear in a blizzard or at a black cat in a coal cellar? And having established that, ask yourself why you expect the camera to get the exposure right.

[Ursie]

Naive new photographer says "Because the manufacturer said it could do it brilliantly." LOL, Guess I'm learning alot. Thanks for all the help!

[jwtex]

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Best book I have read yet on helping me understand exposure.

[Coder33404]

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Best book I have read yet on helping me understand exposure.

I have a couple of his books, both are brilliant! The thing I had to learn at my early stages of photography "not very long ago" was that the camera tries to make everything 18% gray. So when it sees the black cat in the coal mine it lightens it to gray so you have to subtract from the cameras SUGGESTION of proper exposure. If it is a polar bear in a snowstorm the camera tries to also make this 18% gray so you have to add to the cameras SUGGESTION of proper exposure to brighten it up from gray to the actual white that it is.