5dm2 issue

Morning back to you young man . It sounds like you are making excellent upword progress.

I don't know what your prior photographic background is nor your experience with the basics of metering, but I suspect the latter is the crux of the issue. It's all about how you are metering. There is a technical aspect to this, as well as the subjective/artistic part of it. You probably need to concentrate on the technical - ie, getting the right settings.

Ansel Adams used the zone system for metering, and evaluating the light in a scene. I won't go into boring detail on that. But I will tell you how I get decent results. I do a lot of landscape, pictorial and wedding work. I first visually identify a mid-tone value in the scene. This is a compromise, somewhere between the highlights and shadows. Sometimes I hit it on the money and get great exposures. Often I have to do tweaks after the fact in PS which is ok; used to do that in the darkroom anyhow last century .

But if you find that mid-tone value, and meter off that (I press the * button to lock it in for the shot, or make sure my focus point is locked on it when I take the picture) then that will get you close. Fill flash may fix shadows if used; postprocessing may take care of highlights later on.

A lot of people like to expose to the right (meaning on the histogram) so they can preserve bright sky/cloud details. I do this a bit also. It does preserve my sky details, but then shadows will go darker, and that detail will be reduced. I'll fix this (somewhat) in post. So again, my trick is to find that midtone value, and meter off that.

Your camera is a wonderful tool - but a lousy mind reader. On complex scenes - lots of highlights and deep shadows - it does not really know what you consider to be important from a metering standpoint. YOU have to tell it - usually by "pointing the meter" or in your selection of metering mode.

I gave you a lot to digest - hope it helps. Post some examples though and I'll be able to give you more specific guidance. Take care. - Stu

28cmod wrote in post #8694128
Moring Stu,

Setting shuttle priority with eval metering gave me a decent image as you expected.

What are you thinking next? I have high hopes

sapearl wrote in post #8694454
Morning back to you young man . It sounds like you are making excellent upword progress.

I don't know what your prior photographic background is nor your experience with the basics of metering, but I suspect the latter is the crux of the issue. It's all about how you are metering. There is a technical aspect to this, as well as the subjective/artistic part of it. You probably need to concentrate on the technical - ie, getting the right settings.

Ansel Adams used the zone system for metering, and evaluating the light in a scene. I won't go into boring detail on that. But I will tell you how I get decent results. I do a lot of landscape, pictorial and wedding work. I first visually identify a mid-tone value in the scene. This is a compromise, somewhere between the highlights and shadows. Sometimes I hit it on the money and get great exposures. Often I have to do tweaks after the fact in PS which is ok; used to do that in the darkroom anyhow last century .

But if you find that mid-tone value, and meter off that (I press the * button to lock it in for the shot, or make sure my focus point is locked on it when I take the picture) then that will get you close. Fill flash may fix shadows if used; postprocessing may take care of highlights later on.

A lot of people like to expose to the right (meaning on the histogram) so they can preserve bright sky/cloud details. I do this a bit also. It does preserve my sky details, but then shadows will go darker, and that detail will be reduced. I'll fix this (somewhat) in post. So again, my trick is to find that midtone value, and meter off that.

Your camera is a wonderful tool - but a lousy mind reader. On complex scenes - lots of highlights and deep shadows - it does not really know what you consider to be important from a metering standpoint. YOU have to tell it - usually by "pointing the meter" or in your selection of metering mode.

I gave you a lot to digest - hope it helps. Post some examples though and I'll be able to give you more specific guidance. Take care. - Stu

I would say I have a pretty good understanding of metering, and have tried multiple methods of metering and have tried some shots that I know are set correctly from a metering standpoint. Unless there is a some funky cusotom setting that I cant find in the book I dont think it is a setting I have done.

Still testing with the camera...

In AV with ap set at 5.6 and iso at 640 in live view the camera will set the shutter at 1/6 and the image looks fine. turn off live view and the camera immediately changes shutter to a 4 sec exposure....

I have reset everything on the camera, updated firware, no change.

Hi,

First, how are you evaluating the images? Are you looking at the display on the LCD? If so, it's influenced by the Picture Style that's chosen.

Also, all LCDs are notoriously inaccurate, too influenced by ambient light and more. And, the one on the 5D MkII is self-dimming (there's a sensor right below it, over toward the camera's off/on switch). If you put your thumb over the sensor, the LCD will dim to the the max, trying to "match" ambient lighting conditions.

Even if you compensated for ambient light, the review images and histogram are not all that accurate in the camera when shooting RAW. It's actually a display of a jpeg made from the RAW, using whatever Picture Style parameters are set, which serves as the review image file. This is because cameras can't directly display the RAW file.

There might be a glitch in the system... or a setting that's still incorrect.

Try removing all the batteries from the camera... even the little silver button battery.

Press the shutter release button fully once (it won't fire, this just uses up any residual voltage in the camera).

As a precaution, I usually let the camera sit for fifteen minutes to half an hour before reinstalling the batteries... However, this really shouldn't be necessary.

Put the batteries back in... check if the clock and date need resetting. If so, good. You've just done a complete "reboot" of the camera and reset everything to the factory defaults. This eliminates any settings you might overlook and it clears any possibly incorrect instructions "stuck" in the camera's memory. It's sort of like rebooting a computer.

Now try some test exposures again, without making any real changes. I'd suggest you use Av or Tv, go out and shoot in daylight instead of in artificial light. For one thing, many places now use energy saving fluorescent light bulbs that flicker imperceptibly to our eyes, but can be picked up by the camera and give wacky exposures.

If still not okay - with test exposures out in daylight - then there may be a fault in the metering system. I'd have Canon look at it. Save some of your image files to show them what appears to be wrong.

Oh, one last thing... Have you changed the focus screen to one of the optional ones? I don't know that this would cause a problem, I suspect it would be more minor than you describe, but most of the accessory screens appear to require a custom function setting to compensate for exposure.

The images can be seen on the screen or on a PC. It is pretty clear that the issue exists just based on the immediate change of shutter speed moving from live view to not.

Good idea pulling the battery. I will have to try and hunt one down today and try that.

I have nothing on the camera "aftermarket" so that helps troubleshoot I guess.

Thanks!

Adam

What does metering say while in Live view? That uses a different metering method than through the viewfinder.

picturecrazy wrote in post #8695346
What does metering say while in Live view? That uses a different metering method than through the viewfinder.

Thats what I was wondering. Either way the meter is centered (via live view or viewfinder)

At this point I'm at a complete loss, and can't really make any more constructive suggestions.

I don't own the MkII so I was only extrapolating from my classic 5D. We know you get good exposures when running some manual settings and the other combo you tried. You have an understanding of exposure so we can rule that out. Either there is the "mysterious funky setting," you've missed something in the instruction manual, or the thing needs to be repaired.

Btw, which lens are you using?

28cmod wrote in post #8694631
I would say I have a pretty good understanding of metering, and have tried multiple methods of metering and have tried some shots that I know are set correctly from a metering standpoint. Unless there is a some funky cusotom setting that I cant find in the book I dont think it is a setting I have done.

sapearl wrote in post #8695751
At this point I'm at a complete loss, and can't really make any more constructive suggestions.

I don't own the MkII so I was only extrapolating from my classic 5D. We know you get good exposures when running some manual settings and the other combo you tried. You have an understanding of exposure so we can rule that out. Either there is the "mysterious funky setting," you've missed something in the instruction manual, or the thing needs to be repaired.

Btw, which lens are you using?

Tried several, 70-200 2.8 L IS, 85 II 1.2L, 16-35 2.8L

Interesting - and everything is pretty much blown out on all of these lenses I assume. If things are super blown out, it almost sounds like your exposures are being made at either maximum aperture, or really slow shutter speeds, or at extremely high ISO, or a combination of all.

Some samples would really be helpful.

28cmod wrote in post #8696234
Tried several, 70-200 2.8 L IS, 85 II 1.2L, 16-35 2.8L

I'm sure this is not the case. But what you're describing sounds like you somehow dialed in exposure compensation.

You didn't happen to half-press the shutter and rotate your right thumb clockwise on the wheel did you? It's happened a couple of times to me in the past and screw up my exposure.

But that would seem overly simplistic as the cause so if that's not the case, pretend I didn't post anything.

No, actually that's not overly simplistic jw - been there done that, just two days ago.

I was covering an event for the local PBS station, using flash AUTO-Ettl, camera on manual, things were happening pretty fast and I got careless with an overactive thumb. Fortunatley I caught it after only 2 frames, but the shots were easily about 3-stops over . After all these years of film that LCD sure does come in handy.

But - sure would help to see some samples of your problem .

jwcdds wrote in post #8697075
I'm sure this is not the case. But what you're describing sounds like you somehow dialed in exposure compensation.

You didn't happen to half-press the shutter and rotate your right thumb clockwise on the wheel did you? It's happened a couple of times to me in the past and screw up my exposure.

But that would seem overly simplistic as the cause so if that's not the case, pretend I didn't post anything.

For what it's worth, i think my 5DmkII shoots "hot" more often than not. I've got three other Canon cameras on hand and can shoot the exact same scene with the exact same settings and get four different results. The 5D is always a tad overexposed compared to the others. Could the extra pixels have anything to do with this?

village idiot wrote in post #8699625
For what it's worth, i think my 5DmkII shoots "hot" more often than not. I've got three other Canon cameras on hand and can shoot the exact same scene with the exact same settings and get four different results. The 5D is always a tad overexposed compared to the others. Could the extra pixels have anything to do with this?

Same here. I usually get a better result at -1/3rd stop under.

Ditto for my 5D classics.

Az2Africa wrote in post #8699697
Same here. I usually get a better result at -1/3rd stop under.