Nikon D80 Dark or Underexposed Photos

[mr_a...@hotmail.com]

I just bought a Nikon D80 DSLR. I have taken 35mm photos for years using my
1979 vintage Nikon FE. I decided it was time to go digital so I bought the
D80. I've mainly been taking photos for right now with the camera making
most of the settings. I hate to say it, but I am not at all pleased with
the flash photos this camera is taking. Every flash photo I've taken, and
I've played around with different metering settings, different white balance
settings, etc., has been dark and appears to be underexposed. This is the
case even in the fully green auto mode when the camera makes all the
settings. The photos actually look good in the camera display, but when
they are uploaded to a computer, they really look dark. Is this the best I
can expect from this $1200 camera, or what? Has anyone else had this
problem?

Thanks for any help.

[Jim]

<mr_a...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:13nltnk...@news.supernews.com...

Which flash are you using? Which lens are you using?

If you are using the built in flash, it is very easy to get dark pictures.
If you are using the SB600 with a dome diffuser, then all should be well
even with a slow lens like the 18-70 zoom.

I have found that my D70 does tend to under expose by about a stop. You
should avoid judging exposure with the LCD. Instead look at the histogram.
If the histogram shows underexposure, then you as the photographer have to
do something.

Jim

[flambe]

High end digital is a different animal than film.
For best results you should be willing to learn to make tweaks to the image,
preferably using raw.
If you prefer P&S ("you press the shutter, we do the rest" paradigm) there
is no reason to lug around a chunky dSLR and lens.
In general, with digital, slight underexposure is preferable as digital
capture has essentially zero overexposure latitude but can preserve detail
with reasonable noise for about 1.5 stops underexposure.
I assure you the D80 is a magnificent camera once you learn how to use it
with basic image processing.
If your jpegs, and you should learn to use this camera with raw capture if
you want to see what it really can do, are coming off the camera
underexposed then there is something amiss in your work flow. While I do not
use jpeg one of the D80's selling points is the strength and variability of
its jpeg options. With NX you can incorporate some of these options into
your raw work flow.
If you are shooting raw and your image look a bit dark on first opening in
the raw converter that may simply be a matter of creating your own basic
profile.

[Robert Coe]

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 02:29:02 GMT, mr_a...@hotmail.com wrote:
: I just bought a Nikon D80 DSLR. I have taken 35mm photos for years using my

Any expensive DSLR has a flash exposure correction menu item that can be set
to make the camera call for more flash, and that may give you better results.
But the underlying problem is that nowadays camera default settings seem to
favor uising flash for fill-in only. There are several reasons why this is or
isn't a good idea, but it seems to be the current fad. Gisle Hannemyr, a
Norwegian writer/photographer, has written a fairly exhaustive treatise on
Canon's implementation of this phenomenon and how to adjust your settings to
make it work in your favor (or at least not get in your way). The last time I
looked, it was posted on his Web site. I don't remember the URL, but you can
find him with Google.

Bob

[Joe33...@aol.com]

I have a Nikon 8400 I bought several years ago. I adjust the settings
so the picture looks good or bright on the LCD on the camera. After
the I take a picture I will zoom in 10x on the LCD to review the
picture and every detail including eyes look stunning. But on the
computer it looks and prints way too dark, even the computer at the
camera store shows dark pictures. Especially with the external flash
SB600 or with both the SB 600 & Metz 45 both in TTL or any mode the
pictures are too dark. I had at least 3 years to try every setting
including slow shutter, every megapixel, raw, every saturation, film
speed, exposure compensation and metering mode. I thought since it was
a Nikon it had to be a good camera. A bright vivid accurate picture
with detail cannot be made. With software the pictures can be made
printable, but nothing to be proud of, more like ashamed of. I
recently bought Panasonic Lumix 10x pocket camera, to take far away
shots without flash and unexpected shots that come up. The Panasonic
prints straight out of the camera bright, vivid and accurate even at
280 mm, no software touch ups at all. I still need a camera to take
great flash photos, but 3 years of my life has passed with so, so
photos. My recommendation is to take the "Nikon" camera back to the
store or send it in for warranty as fast as you can, don't get stuck
with it.

[Dennis Pogson]

I set my D80 for plus one half-stop exposure compensation (read the manual)
for daylight shots and one full stop for flash shots. It works great. Always
check the exposure compensation icon on the screen before shooting, as it is
easy to reset this accidentally.

Dennis.

[tomm42]

On Jan 1, 9:29 pm, mr_alo...@hotmail.com wrote:

Two things, as one other poster said if you are going to use the D80
on full auto, why did you buy it? But use what you have learned about
photography to master the camera. With my D200 the most auto I get is
auto aperture, I mostly use it on manual, shooting RAW. Digital is
just another film with its own characteristics, under exposure saves
you from blowing highlights, but can bite you with excess noise, so
there is a spot where you can save highlights and have good noise
characteristics, you just have to find it. Then when shooting higher
ISO (above 800) you want to loose some hightlights to surpress the
noise. expose to the right on the histogram. Learning to use a
histogram can be a big thing in digital photography, your camera can
display one with every shot.
About flash, most on camera flashes are fairly low powered, not
suitable for subjects over 12 ft away, sometimes not even that. Have a
big room and you loose more light. If you need more punch you have to
go to one of the external flash units. I still use my old Metz 45CT1
with my D200, works quite well. The Nikon SB 800 or 600 seem to be
good units, I still have a preference for Metz, but mine has worked so
well for so long that I'm not familiar with current models.

Tom

[John D.]

The first thing that you need to do is calibrate your monitor so you can
be sure that what you're seeing on it is accurate. If your monitor is
way out of calibration, that may be why your photos are looking too dark
when viewed on your computer but look OK on the camera's LCD screen.

Until you calibrate your monitor, you can't really make an accurate
assessment of your camera's exposure, IMO.

John

[David J Taylor]

Agreed.

I find this page helpful:

http://www.jasc.com/support/kb/articles/monitor.asp

I use as a quick check it for setting the gain and offset (or contrast and
"brightness" in monitor-speak), and wrote my own program for display
testing:

http://www.david-taylor.myby.co.uk/software/imaging.html#GreyScale

which shows how near the full-black and full-white you can see small
brightness differences.

Cheers,
David

[gpaleo]

For indoor social flash photography (gatherings, partys, ....) I set the
camera to "P", ISO 400 and the SB600 to +0.7 stops output.
The results are bright, fairly wide dynamic range shots straight out the
camera.
Happy New Year

[mr_a...@hotmail.com]

Thanks so much to all who responded to my query about my Nikon D80 taking
dark flash photos. You were all tremendously helpful. I'm probably just
accustomed to my Nikon FE film camera and my Canon Powershot tourist
snapshot camera. Thanks again for the info and the instruction.

[Brian]

I have a D80 in which everything comes out dark also, and that's on 3 different monitors. Maybe my
FE2 and F3 spoiled me but every chrome I ever shot on those camera's came out properly exposed,
unlike my D80. Maybe Nikon should rethink their metering strategy. What's the sense of having an
"Auto" mode if it's worthless...... I didn't buy it to fuss with every exposure. I'm wondering if
the Canon's and the Pentax's shoot everything underexposed like the Nikons..........

Brian

Brian..........

Kill filters - The Enema Of The Usenet !!!!!

[mr_a...@hotmail.com]

I know this is a bit odd, but I'm replying to my own posting. First, I want
to thank everybody that responded. I got a lot of good responses. I had
also sent some photo samples to Nikon's tech support. By the way, Nikon's
tech support is top notch. The tech (David D) was very patient with me. We
emailed back and forth several times, mostly me bitchin' about my
underexposed photos. After I got my most recent response from David D at
Nikon, I could understand completely what was going on.

I'm thinking too much like a point and shooter. I need to be more
photographically minded. He explained that the whole idea behind slightly
underexposing photos is to guarantee that all the data and detail remain in
those photos. If you want to edit those photos later with photo editing
software, you can. However, if the photos come out of the camera
overexposed, detail and data are lost, and no amount of editing can restore
it. After his explanation, I understood that the D80 is a more
sophisticated, higher end camera than the typical tourist digital camera,
and why it does what it does in full auto mode. He suggested either editing
my photos if I wanted them a little brighter, or switching to "P" (Program)
mode, and compensating by adding a bit more exposure.

Thanks to all who posted, and thanks to David D at Nikon's tech support.