EOS 7D Av Shooting

This may be more of a sanity check for me to see if I am missing something. I have noticed that when I shoot with aperture priority my photos are coming out dark, even outdoors with full sun, ISO set to 200. To verify my aperture setting, I will set the camera to fully auto and then match the aperture setting in aperture priority. What I noticed was the camera was setting the shutter speed differently at fully auto than with aperture priority with the same setting. Would anyone know if I am missing something either with the configuration of the camera, the Av settings or maybe it's just the photographer...Thank you,

tmwhitm wrote in post #18331594
This may be more of a sanity check for me to see if I am missing something. I have noticed that when I shoot with aperture priority my photos are coming out dark, even outdoors with full sun, ISO set to 200. To verify my aperture setting, I will set the camera to fully auto and then match the aperture setting in aperture priority. What I noticed was the camera was setting the shutter speed differently at fully auto than with aperture priority with the same setting. Would anyone know if I am missing something either with the configuration of the camera, the Av settings or maybe it's just the photographer...Thank you,

Heya,

Check your +/- EC option. The little graph with the stops +/-. You either have EC turned negative, or you're using evaluative mode and shooting something with a very bright source within the FOV.

Very best,

Thanks but the camera was set to spot metering and the +- was in the middle. AF points are independent of the metering?

tmwhitm wrote in post #18331650
Thanks but the camera was set to spot metering and the +- was in the middle. AF points are independent of the metering?

In spot metering, it will meter the selected AF spot. Check which one it is.

Very best,

It wasn't the center, it was set to four points around the center. I use this for action shots. I will have to test. Thanks...

With spot metering, the 7D uses the center circle in the viewfinder. Set evaluative or center weighted metering and see if exposures are better.

tmwhitm wrote in post #18331650
Thanks but the camera was set to spot metering and the +- was in the middle. AF points are independent of the metering?

What exactly are you shooting? If you are spot metering a subject in a white shirt, or a white bird or a white car then the meter will be fooled and will under expose (even though the meter says the exposure is correct). Does it still happen if you point the camera at a black wall?

Outside portrait, Easter picture, very bright. I will have to test against a darker subject. Mentioned in the post above yours, I do recall now that I have played with the metering by changing it to evaluative and had better results but that was inside taking hockey photos. I just must have the wrong combination set, it's just that I don't recall having this issue with my 30D.

Green box mode and P mode both behave differently than Av...if ISO 400 were set and f/4 was the selected aperture in Av mode, it would behave more similar to P mode and Green Box mode.

P and GreenBox are simply programmed to try to keep the know-little snapshooter out of trouble for most situations, whereas Av mode assumes the user knows a little about what they are doing and the implications of a too-slow shutter speed.

tmwhitm wrote in post #18331657
It wasn't the center, it was set to four points around the center. I use this for action shots. I will have to test. Thanks...

It's pretty obvious that your use of spot metering is the issue. Try evaluative instead. I'm curious why you decided to use spot metering for your action shots. Spot meters on the center 5% of the viewfinder and should mainly be used when your subject is much lighter or darker than the surrounding area. When used in apppriate circumstances it's a great feature. When used inappropriately, it can result in a dark surrounding area. The settings in auto were not using spot metering which is why they were different than the Av settings.

Listen to Mark. He has the correct explanation for you.
Just realize that the selection of AF points is a separate setting from light metering. The only time they interact is when using evaluative metering, as it gets information from the AF setting about what is most important in the picture.
More advanced models have more intricate relationships between AF and metering, but for a 7D, this is true.

tmwhitm wrote in post #18331669
Outside portrait, Easter picture, very bright. I will have to test against a darker subject. Mentioned in the post above yours, I do recall now that I have played with the metering by changing it to evaluative and had better results but that was inside taking hockey photos. I just must have the wrong combination set, it's just that I don't recall having this issue with my 30D.

Spot is not intended for general outdoor images. Is this a constant issue or only for a few selected shots? Did you review after taking the shots in spot? Did they look overly dark on the LCD? If so, when this occurs switch to evaluative or partial metering. Depending on the lighting and how extreme the difference between the subject and background is, using spot metering in order to get your subject exposed well could result in very dark backgrounds. It's a trade off. Thats why evaluative exists, to give you the best overall metering balance. If you could post a couple of examples for us, that would be useful.

Have you checked iso as well? Green box sets auto iso, so you need to set that the same. And then check metering pointer is as close to central as possible. Job's a good one!

I did check the ISO but it was an after thought and I realized that the green box had set the ISO lower than what I had, 200 vs 100 so it wasn't completely apples to apples. I used the spot meter thinking, with a portrait and the focal point on the subject, the image would be exposed correctly. They did look dark in the LCD. I will test again but have to wait till the weekend.

Why dont you just shoot in manual?