Canon 300D exposure problems that I cannot explain

[Ray]

[font color=\'#000000\']I don't understand why centre-weighted metering is associated with manual mode. Is this a characterisitc of the 300D?

The purpose of centre-weighted metering, and even more specifically, spot metering, is to get a more accurate reading for a particular part of the image. You can expose for the black part of the dog or the white part of the dog. This is what you've done in 1A and 1B. I see no problem here.

Pictures 2B and 3A seem like temporary glitches to me, but since you say this happens frequently, I've got no explanation. Take the camera in for a service.[/font]

[cristianomc]

[font color=\'#000000\']Did you try bracketing?[/font]

[Daniel Tomarchio]

[font color=\'#000000\']I have not taken photos of Black and White dogs but I do take lots of photos of grooms wearing a black tuxedo standing next to a bride wearing a white dress. First up you need to have your subject in even lighting. By this I mean have your Dog in open SHADE not in full sunlight as even the best film or digital camera will not be able handle the extremes between the whitest white and the blackest black. Then  point your camera at the grass and lock the exposure,reframe the dog  then expose.The resulting exposure should be pretty close and you may have to fine tune it by dialling + or - EV. What you have done by locking the exposure on the grass is meter off an area that is fairly close to 18% grey. If you meter of the black part of the dog the meter will try to make the black part 18% gray. The same applies if you meter of the white area, you will end up with 18% gray. For best results use a grey card or even the palm of your hand can be used to lock the exposure.[/font]

[joedevico]

[font color=\'#000000\']The probems have to do with focus and flash issues. I do know that I sometimes get blown images with my canon camera and flash combination. This is probably the problem with the inside shots. The flash may not have fully recharged yet or here may be other issues.

The outdoor shots are not properly focused. I believe this has an effect even on evaluative metering.

2A is focused on the grass and foreground - exposure is fine.

2B may be focused properly on the black of the dog, causing the camera to choose a long shutter resulting in general over exposure (there is obvious movement in the image).

3A if focused properly on the black part of the dog and chose a long shutter to expose the black of the dog properly.

3B is clearly focused behind the dog where the camera exposed properly for the scene.

I am NO expert and can't claim to understand how AE works - but in my opinion, most of this seems to be working properly. Before the 300D, how did you photograph. Did you send your negs to a lab to have them processed or did you do them yourself? I've found that many people new to digital are surprised to find that they have to be much better photographers than before as the lab won't correct for under or overexposed negatives. That coupled with the inferior dynamic range of most digicams causes them much discomfort. Try shooting slide film for a while and you'll probably find similar results.

Hope that helps - but as I said, I'm no expert and there's no harm in sending the camera back to Canon for an inspection.[/font]

[Jigal]

[font color=\'#000000\']My sister-in-law and her husband found some strange exposure problems with their 300D. Hopefully anyone here can shed some light on this phenomenon...
----------------------------------
I have my 300D since last October, and I’ve made a lot of pictures with it. Generally I am happy with it, but I frequently run into two major exposure problems for which I don’t have an explanation or don’t know how to solve. I have read the Doug Kerr overview (excellent by the way), the Canon workshops and everything I could find, but that doesn’t solve my problem. I have had several Canon camera’s, both analog SLR and digital compact, so I’m not a complete photography n00b… But I do have a big digital camera challenge: my major topic is black and white dogs…

Before starting to accuse Canon of supplying me with a malfunctioning camera, I hope some of you have smart ideas?

Examples (thumbnails incl. EXIF-data) are posted at http://www.xs4all.nl/~dcbjht/300D/. Links to the original pictures (not touched by Photoshop or any other software) are also available, but they are quite large, please note before you start downloading. And please, only download them if you really need them, since monthly bandwidth usage is limited ;-)
 
Problem 1 (see picture 1A and 1B)
For me, it's impossible to use some kind of center-weighted metering with black and white dogs. If the center is the white part of the dog (picture 1A), the picture is underexposed; if the center is the black part of the dog (picture 1B), the picture is overexposed. Anyone has an intelligent solution (apart from: 'avoid any form of center-weighted metering, and thus Manual mode', or: 'buy another color dog')?

Problem 2 (see pictures 2A/B and 3A/B)
All 4 pictures are using Program AE, the kit lens and evaluative metering. Picture 2A and 2B are 4 seconds apart (constant ambient light, so no sudden shadow or sun change) and shot at the same focal length. Picture 3A and 3B are taken one month later, only 1 second apart, with the same settings. Can anyone explain why both times one of the pictures is extremely over-exposed? Or better: can anyone give me some suggestions how to avoid this? These are just 2 examples of a problem that occurs very frequently, and which I wouldn't expect with evaluative metering.

Thanks,
Miriam.[/font]

[Jigal]

[font color=\'#000000\']It's one of the "limitations" of the 300D firmware that manual mode only allows center-weighted metering. Somehow the results of this metering is used to adjust the built-in flash...

As to pictures 2B and 3A, this happens way too frequently to be a glitch. In series of photos the exposure varies from underexposed to overexposed.
Often a series of photos is taken of a dog in a certain position just to be able to select the best shot later in terms of eyes closed, ear not straight, etc. Unfortunately this comes down to selectin the shot with the best exposure  

Until now Canon has only responded with a standard e-mail about exposure modes and ways to use them.[/font]

[cristianomc]

[font color=\'#000000\']I did read that EOS 300D has the color settings (sharp, contrast and bright) set to +1. Try to set to zero, if possible. Or try to make exposure compensations (-1ev, etc)...[/font]

[Jigal]

[font color=\'#000000\']

First up you need to have your subject in even lighting. By this I mean have your Dog in open SHADE not in full sunlight as even the best film or digital camera will not be able handle the extremes between the whitest white and the blackest black.

@Daniel Tomarchio:
Did you look at the examples? It's not a question of capturing the range from black to white, the problem is dat some photos are simply overexposed.
Messing around with an 18% grey card is not a serious suggestion, isn't it? You ask every guest on the wedding to run around with a grey card and hold it up whenever you want to take their picture?
@cristianomc:
The +1 settings do not have such an impact as you can see in the examples on the site.[/font]

[DannoPiano]

[font color=\'#000000\']I have to second the suggestion of using the grass (or something else) as your "grey card". You'll have this same exact difficulty taking pictures in the snow or desert where you have high contrast - typically snow pictures tend to look underexposed and dull. The camera is doing what it is programmed to do - treat the scene as if it were 18% grey. With centered weighting it can be biased to one extreme or the other very easily because it is thinking that the center is 18% grey when it might not be.

Another suggestion is to shoot in manual exposure mode. Take a few test shots until you get what you like and then keep using that setting for all the remaining shots. You're not buying film here so take advantage of the "free" test shots.

Have you tried shooting in RAW mode? You could fix the exposure later in Photoshop.[/font]