My 30D got weird on me the other night

scottcolbath

I was shooting Alice Cooper with my 30D and switching back and forth between my 70-200 F/2.8L IS and my 85 F/1.8 and saw the same symptom with both cameras, which leads me to believe what I am going to describe next was something witih the camera.

I was set to apeture priority all night and pretty much shooting wide open with both lenses. Lighting was rough, so I bumped up to ISO 400, then 800 to pick up some shutter speed. I was shooting freehand. Note to self........Get a monopod ASAP.

Anyway, what I experienced was that the exposure meter when viewed inside the camera, was showing two lines rather than one, and they were side by side in the overexposed range. I could not get them to move, no matter what I did, such as change apeture setting, switch to Tv, change ISO. Nothing worked. I basically ended up with lots of bad pics from my 30D. Thankfully I had my XT as a backup. I got some OK shots from that.

Here's one of very few that was worth a damn from the 30D. This is a warmup act, not Alice's band.



Anyone seen the exposure meeter act odd as I describe? I haven't dug out my manual yet. That's on the agenda when I get home today.

S.C.

cmason

The exposure meter will show those two bars if you have it in AEB or Auto Exposure Balance mode. Normally you get 3 bars, but if you scroll the back wheel to the left, it will underexpose and show only two bars.

If you turn off and turn back on your camera it will return to normal.

scottcolbath

cmason wrote:

The exposure meter will show those two bars if you have it in AEB or Auto Exposure Balance mode. Normally you get 3 bars, but if you scroll the back wheel to the left, it will underexpose and show only two bars.

If you turn off and turn back on your camera it will return to normal.

Nuts. Just another screw up from that night.

Eh, at least I got the chance to chat with Alice Cooper for a good, long time.

S.C.

cmason

scottcolbath wrote:

Nuts. Just another screw up from that night.

Eh, at least I got the chance to chat with Alice Cooper for a good, long time.

S.C.

By the way, you should have a bunch of similar images that are extremely dark and underexposed. If you do, this is what happened. If every image is different, then something weird is going on.

scottcolbath

cmason wrote:

By the way, you should have a bunch of similar images that are extremely dark and underexposed. If you do, this is what happened. If every image is different, then something weird is going on.

Actually, they are all pretty well blown out. I'll upload one to my Smugmug account when I get home so you can have a look.

S.C.

stirinthesauce

I use to shoot a lot of concert photography. Quick tip that works for me:

Shoot in manual and keep your shots at least 1 stop underexposed in the camera and adjust from there. Check your histogram after a few. Check for blown out subject matter (the musicians or point of interest such as instruments). The stage lighting, especially the strobes and gels popping, will create havoc for your in camera light meter. Almost always you will blow out your images. Sometimes I "underexpose" (using the camera light meter) as much as 2 stops. I always found it better not to blow out the highlights and boost any exposure needed in post. Too many times I pushed the exposure only to get back to PS and find that though the image was great (or would have been), I had blown out the highlights or worse.

Oh, and your 30d hates red stage lights. Wait for blues, yellows, greens, whatever to be bouncing around stage when your firing off.

Concert photography is so much fun! Challenging, exciting and you get to hear some good music while at it.

scottcolbath

stirinthesauce wrote:

I use to shoot a lot of concert photography. Quick tip that works for me:

Shoot in manual and keep your shots at least 1 stop underexposed in the camera and adjust from there. Check your histogram after a few. Check for blown out subject matter (the musicians or point of interest such as instruments). The stage lighting, especially the strobes and gels popping, will create havoc for your in camera light meter. Almost always you will blow out your images. Sometimes I "underexpose" (using the camera light meter) as much as 2 stops. I always found it better not to blow out the highlights and boost any exposure needed in post. Too many times I pushed the exposure only to get back to PS and find that though the image was great (or would have been), I had blown out the highlights or worse.

Oh, and your 30d hates red stage lights. Wait for blues, yellows, greens, whatever to be bouncing around stage when your firing off.

Concert photography is so much fun! Challenging, exciting and you get to hear some good music while at it.

Excellent advice. Thanks.

S.C.

stirinthesauce

scottcolbath wrote:

Excellent advice. Thanks.

S.C.

no problem

-Jon

pyry

The camera will show two bars in the metering display if you have it set to half-EV steps and then offset it to something and a half. Third EV steps will give you the one bar. This is in the custom functions, have a look which way you have it.

It would help if you could copy and paste in all exif data with the shots - smugmug will strip it from the image itself.