Is my camera underexposing?

The general theme with my shots is that they seem underexposed. I've posted a couple of shots taken outdoors for you guys to have a look at. I'm not sure but I'm coming to the opinon that it's unexposing my shots. I'm sure some of you guys out there would be able to offer a decent opinon:

Camera - EOS 300D, Lens 100-300 USM f3.5-4
Image 1
1/320sec f5.6 ISO400 250mm Program Mode:

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On the 1st shot, the back of the animal has a spot that's (almost?) burned out. I'ld say the exposure is fine. Second one is a subject in front of a light background. That's bound to throw the meter off. Next time take a metering framed lower, lock exposure, recompose.
Or use +EC
You can off course dial in a bit of EC permanently, but I don't think the camera is wrong here. It's doing what it's supposed to do. Get to know your camera better, so you'll know at what times it will not do what you want, and you can correct it before taking the shot.

I dont think you have a camera problem, Burchy, you will learn its strengths ...

Although it may seem like the images are underexposed, if you check the histogram of each sample you posted (in Photoshop or similar programs), you can see that the camera did a good job of keeping the shots within the dynamic range of the sensor. You can see that, in the 1st photo, for example. that the white rear end of the deer is just short of being blown. Another 1/3 or 1/2 stop increase in exposure that area would surely have been blown.

If you would like the image to be a little brighter, you can use Photoshop to adjust that. Or, if you took the picture in RAW mode, you can make the brightness adjustments during raw conversion.

Not sure that I understand what you mean by taking a metered shot "lower". Do you mean get as much of the forground (i.e. non bright background) in the frame by tilting the camera down and lock the exposure? Would this not just overexpose the background?

PacAce I noticed that the histogram needed quite a lot of adjustment to get the tonal range correct. Is this what a digital EOS does when there's potential for a blown area? i.e. reduce the tonal range so it isn't blown?

Picture #1 is backlit IMO. It's always hard to shoot in that situation but a lot of photographers use that to their advantage. Fill flash would help in #1 and #2 but it depends on how powerful your flash is and how far the subject is. Also, +EC should help but some area might be blownout.

By default, 300D uses evaluative metering. But if you use the * button to lock the exposure on the subject, it switches to partial metering which gives you more accurate exposure on the subject. However, in your case the background would be overexposed.

Hope that helps.

From the responses it's sounding like the lighting conditions were challenging and regardless of what I had metered on the results would probably have been a compromise. Not too sure a flash would have been a good idea in this instance, i.e. I don't think the deer wouldn't have been around for long. Thanks for giving me some confidence in my kit though, in the future, in similar situations I will try various metering techniques in order to learn what's best for the camera.

The camera usually will meter so that the entire scene fits within the dynamic range of the sensor if it can. However, that's not to say the exposure is necessarily correct even though it may be technically correct. That is where your eyes, the histogram and the EC control come in to make adjustments so that the photo comes out the way you want it.

The shot's are backlit with bright(ish) backgrounds, exposed exactly as I'd expect. To expose for the subject you'd be blowing the background; but that's not a bad thing, if' you'd shot from the lit side of the deer, you would have boring lighting but an easier job of balancing the exposure. You did a good job by using interesting light.

Your camera seems to be fine. With a VERY quick (took longer to open photoshop than do the edit) pass through photoshop it looks a lot better. (at least to my eyes)

All the detail is there just need to bring it out.

P.S. if my edit bothers you please let me know I will pull it.

Edit: Was not happy with my quick pass though photoshop so spent about 3 minutes on it.

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Thanks for all you help guys, you've given me confidence in my kit and given my some pointers to try out next time I'm in that situation. Thanks for the touched up PS image, I'm getting quite good at enhancing through PS myself (see below), however it's my goal to start producing shots that don't always need correcting in PS!

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