20d histogram/metering off?

Am I missing something here?? I have a 20d & was playing with my new studio softbox. I am sitting right next to it (so close, my head & shoulder is rubbing it). And my images are still turning out DARK!! Looking into my histogram & at the LCD everything looks pretty good...maybe a little on the darker side, but nothing shoved over to the edges like my capture one graph is showing.

Take a look at these two photos. Here's the info:

Lights are on in the room (usually they're not, but they were today)
650watt arri light with softbox attached.
nifty fifty lens
20d camera - no flash onboard
1/160s
f3.5
average metering - maybe this is the problem??
iso200

The kid is standing arm's length from the softbox & from me.

The first photo is the original, the 2nd is the lightened one from Capture One - maybe a little on the extreme end. I lightened 1.55 & maybe should have only gone 1.45 or so...but anyway - you get the idea.

Am I having a total brain fart?

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I think the ideal is somewhere between the two you've posted but I find the original exposed quite well. The second is way too bright for my tastes, nearly blown. I know that I routinely have to bump images from my 20D by about .5 for my tastes.

Yeah. I agree. I find it's usually 1 instead of .5 for me. But that's just my taste. And yes I agree that I nearly blew this one out, but I just did a quick job. I would tweek this more & adjust if I was going to print it. But I thought according to my histogram & LCD this would have been pretty close. Maybe I"m just not one for "dark" photos. but considering how bright it was in person, I figured my camera should have picked up on that pretty close to reality.

I'm debating about getting the 40d & I think my decision is getting more & more in favor of it - and quickly.

this camera does really good outside, but inside I think it sucks! - & I never used to think that until lately.

No, the original is quite a bit under exposed. #2 is bright, but not over exposed at all.

I don't know studio lighting, but how is the camera supposed to meter for lighting different than a hotshoe attached speedite?

The Arri is a continuous "hot" light, not a strobe, right?

I prefer the original to the modified version, even though it is slightly dark. The other one is uncomfortably light to me.

Some of the problem may be that light skin is really brighter than an 18% reflectance value and tends to meter dark anyhow, but when I downloaded it and looked at the histogram, it looked a little more under exposed than I would have expected from just metering light skin. When I shoved the right hand slider up to the first bump on the histogram, the picture looked pretty darned good. I can't begin to explain why it would under expose inside, but not outside.

The 2nd one is better exposed than the first one. The first one is under exposed.

The reason the 2nd one looks too bright is that you lighting ratio between the highlight side and the shadow side is too great. Also, you are skimming the light across her face at too much of an angle. You light should be brought forward some.

For the lighting ratio, there are different feelings about what is right, depending on what you are trying to achieve. On this shot, I would have made the differences between the highlight and shadow side about 3/4ths of a fstop to maybe 1 stop... metering on the highlight side so it was properly exposed and letting the shadow side drop off the 3/4ths to 1 stop. With this shot it looks like you exposed for the shadow side, which let the highlight side over expose by about 1.5 to 1.75 stops. This is why the highlight side is almost blown. Part of it though is from the compression to the image so you could display it here. Anytime you compress an image, it decreases the quality of it.

Mike

Prairie; the image is underexposed only by a half stop or so. Check to make sure you have not accidently set the camera to underexpose. I've done that before and underexposed a whole shoot.

Next, move your main light toward the camera and at a 45degree angle to the subject. This will give better portrait lighting. Then place a white reflector as close to the opposite side of the face as possible to fill in those harsh shadows.

Hope this helps.

Hinson

Hinson - that wasn't my problem. I checked to see if I had under exposed. & according to the camera, it's perfectly balanced.

As for the light being next to the camera - it couldn't have gotten any closer - except for being above me. I thought the light was at about 45 to her, but she must have moved slightly. But in person, the lighting looked pretty darn good - after all, I was just screwing around with a new toy (softbox & light) , but the camera obviously didn't see it that way.

Jim - yes the arris are a hot light vs strobe. I don't care for strobes. I used to hate them when I had my pictures taken, so I don't use them for my subjects. I have a large enough studio that the heat they produce isn't even noticable. And I'm not into a whole bunch of "effects" that some people are. I haven't hoaned my skills to that point. I get pleasing enough photos without a bunch of extras...no one's complained yet.

prairie pics wrote in post #3929837
Hinson - that wasn't my problem. I checked to see if I had under exposed. & according to the camera, it's perfectly balanced.

As for the light being next to the camera - it couldn't have gotten any closer - except for being above me. I thought the light was at about 45 to her, but she must have moved slightly.

Actually, now that I study the image a bit more it does appear that the light was properly placed.

prairie pics wrote in post #3929837
But in person, the lighting looked pretty darn good - after all, I was just screwing around with a new toy (softbox & light) , but the camera obviously didn't see it that way.

Unfortunately, the camera (read film or chip) does not have the same lattitude that our eyes have. Your eyes saw the definition in the shadows (lower photo) and the definition in the highlights (upper photo) but the chip couldn't match that lattitude. That was why the recommendation for a reflector on her left. It would have filled in those shadows a bit.

Hinson