Pictures are darker than the LCD screen??? Why?

When shooting with my 5D, ive noticed often the LCD screen shows me pictures that look much better exposed than they really are.

I will take a picture, I see it looks great in the screen, the hist. looks fine...but when I open the photo on my computer it seems underexposed. This isn't all the time, but it does happen a lot. Especially if I use a flash.

Is this normal?

You may have to enter the world of monitor calibration....or get a better quality one.

Look up a review of yours and see if it's a shared issue.

You'll be ask this question so let me be the first.

Is your monitor calibrated?

Now that is done, the pre-view is just that a pre-view. You can use the camera's LCD to tell if the exposure is correct or not.

The Histogram only indicate the, since its a 5D, level/amount of shadow/midtone/highlig​ht it captures thru each color (RGB).

No, the 5D also has a setting for brightness histogram like the 20D and others before it - or you can view the RGB histogram.

It sounds like it's an exposure problem by not looking at the histogram when in the field. He never stated anything about printing - which is usually where brightness problems with the monitor come into play.

Or you have the screen brightness turned up to far so looks good on camera screen but dark on computer monitor..

You hit the nail on the head.

Most people will take a shot, look at the image on the screen and then turn up the brightness until it looks good. I did this myself and was very disappointed when I saw the image on my monitor.

I now have a calibration spyder and with my monitor calibrated, the images on the PC look better but still not as good as the cameras lcd. I've turned the brightness down a little and although it is still too bright, it makes chimping that little bit easier

Yup, LCD screen was up too far. I thought I had it set to the middle value. I generally don't like bright screens on cameras, especially when I shoot at night. I don't remember ever adjusting up so high...oh well! Thanks!

The brightness adjustment on the camera's LCD is intended to account for different viewing conditions. Usually when indoors, the lowest setting will work ok. Outdoors, especially on a sunny day, you'll need to crank it up to see your images. It's generally not a very useful tool for judging exposure, in any lighting. Learn how to read and interpret the histogram, which is a much better tool for that purpose.