XS Exposure on Manual Setting.

dabeersboys

Hi All!
I'm new to photography and to the forum, but not new to forums, so I did search around for this, so any help would be appriciated.

I bought my XS in October- and I want to say my manual setting for the first day or so worked fine.

Now in manual setting on the XS you can control your Aperture and your shutter speed but not your Exposure Level.

The instruction manual says- when you change your shutter speed and aperture, the exposure level will change so you can pick your exposure level.

I have done all of this and my exposre level moves up then back down to -2 every time. even a picture of the sun looks dark.

Any suggestios?

Thanks.
Matt

PhotosbyKW

Matt, I'm not sure that I understand your situation, but I'll attempt to start a solution...

The actual exposure is the ammount of light hitting a medium (film/sensor) for a coorisponding length of time. With that in mind, an average exposure on a cloudy day might be ISO 200 1/60th sec. at f8. That exact ammount of light might also be achieved at 1/125th sec. at f5.6, or ISO 400 1/30th sec. at f16, etc.

A photo of something bright like the sun (bad idea, for sensor life, btw) can still look dark, if the exposure settings are set to only allow a limited amount of light to get in.

PhotosbyKW

Let me try this another way. I have not used your camera, BTW- but most work in similar fashion.

In AV or TV, you should be able to see a little slider bar inside the viewfinder, somewhere. This is an exposure meter. as you aim the camera at various objects, in either mode, you can see this exposure go to plus or minus, depending on how close the scene is to what the camera averages as a perfect exposure (no such thing in artistic vision, btw). As you toggle the settings in either mode, the camera will attempt to match (counter) the setting that you dial, with a match of the other. Ex.- if you pick an aperature of f8, it will try to match a shutter speed to get the overall scene back up to par with its default "perfect" exposure.

Now, suppose the camera determines that the scene in AV should be 1/125 at f8. Were you to switch to Manual mode, the camera would still assume that the correct settings would be 1/125 at f8, and would try to persuade you to chose those settings, but only now- it can only advise, and cannot actually do it on its own. Does this help at all?

KAW.

dabeersboys

I'll try this and see if it works.
But I do know what you are saying- and It does work in every other setting compensating for the missing variable ie in manual- compesating for the exposure level for the best picture.

I'll see if messing with the setting decided to change any of this... But I've had not luck so far-

Thank you!

ziggy53

dabeersboys wrote:

Hi All!
I'm new to photography and to the forum, but not new to forums, so I did search around for this, so any help would be appriciated.

I bought my XS in October- and I want to say my manual setting for the first day or so worked fine.

Now in manual setting on the XS you can control your Aperture and your shutter speed but not your Exposure Level.

The instruction manual says- when you change your shutter speed and aperture, the exposure level will change so you can pick your exposure level.

I have done all of this and my exposre level moves up then back down to -2 every time. even a picture of the sun looks dark.

Any suggestios?

Thanks.
Matt

Matt, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I'm moving this to the Technique forum as this is not a camera specific question.

If I understand your situation, you are using the manual exposure mode and you want to set the exposure. In "manual" mode you have taken control of the camera and there is no automation except for flash automation.

When you set the 3 variables that control exposure:

Shutter speed
Aperture
ISO sensitivity

... that controls your entire exposure. There is no "EV" override adjustment because you are in direct control of the camera. As you change each variable you will see the exposure meter change. If you see a -2 on the meter, you either:

Lengthen the exposure time with a longer shutter setting.
Open the aperture with a smaller number f-stop. f4 is more open than f5.6, for instance.
Use a higher ISO.

... or you combine all of these until the meter shows a more-or-less central position, depending on the subject. Your own palm, for instance, should read above the center position for a proper exposure in any given ambient lighting situation, unless you are going for an effect.

ziggy53

I should add, because it may not be obvious at first, that you change the shutter speed with the single dial control directly, but to change the aperture you hold the Av/exposure compensation button and turn the main dial.

ISO is controlled with the ISO button on top and the control dial.

dabeersboys

ziggy53 wrote:

I should add, because it may not be obvious at first, that you change the shutter speed with the single dial control directly, but to change the aperture you hold the Av/exposure compensation button and turn the main dial.

ISO is controlled with the ISO button on top and the control dial.

Thanks PhotosbyKW I gues si was doing something wrong and i got it all figured out now!!!
ITs workign i just didn't understand it like i thought.