5 replies to this topic

[Old Hi Fi Nut]

I was looking out my back door and noticed the lovely warm glow the sun gave to the trees. When I looked at the result, it was quite a bit washed out. I tried setting the meter mode from matrix to center weighted then spot. But only setting exposure compensation to minus one whole stop gave a result that matched what I was seeing. It seems that my Nikon D3200 has a tendency to over expose. Back in the days of film cameras, I was used to my center weighted meter readings on my Contax RTSII and never had a problem. Now I use my 210mm and 50mm Carl Zeiss on my Nikon so that's at least keeping the lenses in use
Anyone else have overexposure issues on Nikon?

[Merco_61]

The Contax RTS family tended to err towards underexposure as they were primarily geared for shooting slide film or Tri-X, where even the slightest overexposure was noticeable. They were also so hard centerweighted as to be nearly spotmetered, but with a large spot... 

 

Do you shoot in .jpg or raw? If you shoot in raw, what raw converter do you use? Do you use a calibrated monitor for editing? The factory settings on most modern screens are too bright. What picture control did you use?

The more modern bodies tend to expose a bit lighter than my dinosaurs (D300 and D700) do as rescuing nearly blown highlights is now possible in post with the right software. Avoiding underexposure gives less noise in the photos. 

[Old Hi Fi Nut]

I was shooting in raw but switched to jpg because I like to use my sd card in my television and it won't show raw. I don't take very many photos so using raw seemed like overkill anyway. When I shot in raw, I used photoshop cc but I cancelled the subscription to it and lightroom as I didn't use it enough to pay for it every month as I am unemployed. I'm not sure how to calibrate a monitor. Don't know what picture control is.

[Merco_61]

You don't need expensive software to shoot in raw, Capture NX-D is a free download at Nikon's support site. Nikon | Download center | NX Studio

There are many advantages to shooting in raw, one of them is the ability to do extensive edits without degrading the picture quality, unlike a .jpg where so much of the sensor's information is discarded in the camera as there isn't room for it all in only 8 bits. When comparing the formats, think of the raw file as a SACD or DAT recording and the .jpg as an mp3 made from the original.

Picture Controls are flavours of rendering the finished photo and well worth exploring some. Page 76 onwards in your manual.

Cambridge in Colour have a good article up about monitor calibration. Monitor Calibration for Photography

[Old Hi Fi Nut]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Old Hi Fi Nut]

I've now realised that it's my error regarding over exposure. I thought when I first got my D3200, that it was back focusing but now I know it was my shaking hands that was causing the slight blur. That's why I feel the need for VR. I think setting my camera's ISO to auto has helped too. I will have to stop being the proverbial bad worker and stop blaming my tools for my user errors.