60D too much light in my photos while shooting in manual mode

Started Jun 30, 2012 | Discussions thread
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Re: 60D too much light in my photos while shooting in manual mode
In reply to Frank George III, Jul 1, 2012

Firstly. Why did you post two exactly the same topics?

Secondly. You got some good advice in the other post but you still have no idea what you are doing reading your latest post. Let me show you why I think that.

Frank George III wrote:

But when I try to shoot in low light, like the tree at dusk, or maybe a little after dusk > depending on what your idea of dusk is... a level of light where I should be looking > to set as wide of an aperature as I can to get as much light in as I can find... > shadows are not a problem, there are tons of them and very little light left from the > sky kinda of a situation... so I slow down the shutter and adjust the aperture until > my meter is in the middle, take the shot and its like its mid afternoon or > something...

This is what a light meter is for. It will indicate a 18% gray exposure of the subject you point the meter at. The camera doesn't know if it is dark or light. It can even less guess how you want the image to look.

I don't know where the camera is finding all of the light - cause its not there.

Of course there is light but your eyes have trouble seeing it. The camera doesn't have a problem. It just extends the exposure and accumulates the light until it has what it thinks is a correct exposure. Isn't technology great?

So what you must do is instruct the camera what to do. This means that you have to tell it how to expose the shot. Not just set the meter in the middle and press the button. This is not what manual exposure is about. You can just as well use Tv and let the camera decide. This is you major problem. You don't understand what exposure means. You think it means setting the needle in the middle and that's it. Well it's not. Far from that.

if you went to your living room, turned off all of the lights in all of the other rooms > around and turned on one lamp in the corner and focused on an object across the > room where there was very little light on it - adjusted to a correct exposure level and > took the shot - looked at the photo and the light in the photograph was like instead > of a lamp in the opposite corner of the room behind you being on - its like the entire > room is iluminated.

You can't blame the camera for doing exactly what you told it it should do. It created a "correctly" exposed image. This doesn't mean the exposure is what you saw at the time. It means that the part of the scene that you pointed the light meter to is exposed for 18% gray and that is not what you saw at the time. If you know the scene is dark you must underexpose to make it look the same. The light meter cannot do miracles and somehow know what you want.

Which is fine, if that is normal - I've just never encountered that - I could see at -1 > or -2 to get it just right like - |............^...0...............| + or vise versa, but that low > on the scale to remove light that isn't really there cause its almost dark?

You now know why.

I understand the center and the indicator is just representing how far from a typical > correct exposure is, but there's almost no room left on the scale.

That's because the scene is dark. There is no surprise there.

Another question, is there a way to make the stops on the camera set like on a true non-digital SLR - like I have all of these 1/4 or 1/3rd stops and I don't know if i'm doing the math correctly to adjust shutter, ISO and aperature based on the divisions like he talks about in his book?

What's the difference between a meter of a non-digital and a digital SLR? They work the same. In fact all camera meters work the same.

Thanks for listening and for your advice, I'm just trying to figure out normal here or > if I have a problem with my meeter on the camera.

No problem with your meter, you just have to spend some time understanding what the meter is telling you. Stop posting concerns and start experimenting. Some reading about the topic would help too.

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