D300 underexposure...

[karmagarda]

I've been having an issue recently which is particularly annoying. I'm wondering is it time for me to move on to the trusty histogram instead of trusting my eyes.

When doing studio work I will take anywhere from 1 - 5 shots of the Model during set up for exposure/lighting levels/positioning etc etc. My procedure is generally: Adjust stuff -> Check LCD -> If happy snap away. When the model is changing/looking for a pose/adjusting something or other/I'll do a bit of a chimp and see how things are going. I'm usually still happy at this stage.

Then, upload to PC... usually everything is underexposed by a couple of stops :bang:! So I end up having to bump my exposure on the raw over all the files which is getting really annoying.

Thing is, I trust my flippin eyes so don't know why this is happening. I know I'll probably move to using the histogram instead, but... ARGH... what the flippin flip like? I have 20-20 vision, there was even a colour test (gamma range or something) that went around the forum for a while and I aced that too. So it's not my eyes.

I have a mate who has run into this same issue on both a D300 and D700.

Anyone else run into this?

 

[foggy4ever]

Do you use a light meter? I have recently got hold of some Elinchrom stuff to use at home and a light meter and with very little experience found it simple to get it close in camera using a D300/S5 Pro.

 

[Beagletorque]

Adjust your camera LCD brightness to match the screen??

 

[karmagarda]

Do you use a light meter? I have recently got hold of some Elinchrom stuff to use at home and a light meter and with very little experience found it simple to get it close in camera using a D300/S5 Pro.

I don't. Might be something I will invest in though.

Adjust your camera LCD brightness to match the screen??

That's something I'm going to try tomorrow and see if it makes a difference. I'm thinking it will just make the LCD a little harder to see rather than "reduce the exposure" of it though. But it's worth a try.

I wonder is the camera doing some sort of a process to it when storing the internal jpeg and somewhat bumping the exposure? I'm hoping not, as this would be extremely annoying. It's fair enough it having a play with colours etc, but not doing exposure adjustments before displaying the internal jpeg.

 

[cambsno]

Funnily enough, I find my D300 images are often underexposed. Taking aside the badly taken pics which are over / under exposed through technique, I would say that 90% need a boost in LR.

 

[karmagarda]

That's what I'm finding. Going to try do a bit of experimenting this evening or tomorrow and see what produces the best results. Seems I can't rely on the LCD anyway unless I use the histogram in conjunction with it.