kenArchi wrote:
Why do digital photos come out dark. They look like they are under exposed.
The first photo is correct exposure at f8 1/400 sec. I use a Gossen meter incident reading.
The second photo is f8 1/200 sec.
The second photo brightness is actually how I see it.
When I was using film and doing my own scanning with the Nikon 2400 scanner, the scans would not be dark like digitals, without doing any adjustments.
These photos are from raw files, no adjustments.
Am I not understanding something here?
It seems like I always have to over expose my photos.
Maybe my camera needs exposure adjustment somehow.
Why do digital photos come out dark. They look lik... (
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I am a little confused. Is the first image done with the in camera meter at F8 and 1/400 sec, and the second image done with the incident meter, at 1/200? The second image is brighter, but you state that the first image was done with the incident meter.
I am assuming this is a typo and the reverse is true.
This may be a perfect example of when NOT to rely on an incident meter without making some adjustments based on your experience, camera's dynamic range and highlight headroom. The incident meter is correct for the light falling on the white building. However, the building's brightness is closer to the limit of what the camera's ability to record with any detail. The round object on the ground just to the right of the base of the chimney reads 249, 249, and 251 - R, G and B respectively when sampled in Adobe Camera Raw. Then you have the second lighting condition, the shade under the trees on the left and the foreground. Different light there. If you were to do an incident meter reading there, you'd find it would be a greater exposure.
The camera's meter is also correct. It does not know what is shade and what is white building walls. It does know that there is a large bright area, and a large dark area. It will try to expose the white area so as to retain detail but still show it as white, and let the shadows fall where they may. These are the rules generally built into matrix metering or evaluative metering. To me, the first image has more information to work with in the highlights.
Another approach might be to use the camera's spot meter function, read off that white round thing, and add 1-2/3 stop to the reading. This will likely place the tonal value of that object somewhere between your two exposures.
As the photographer, it is your choice how to meter, and later, how to handle this in post processing. You can get decent images from either. If you use the camera's interpretation, you would raise the exposure, perhaps the highlights, and may be the white level to clean up and brighten the walls, and adjust the shadow slider to lighten up the darker areas. Add a little clarity (microcontrast), and maybe a little dehaze, and you would have a reasonable image. If you were to use the second image, you still need to increase exposure, but maybe by half as much as the first image. Drop the highlights significantly and adjust the other areas as needed to realize your vision. Judging from the values represented int the small jpegs you posted, it does not appear that either image is over exposed.
The attached image has the adjustments that I suggested above.