D7100 Issues

IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
edited April 25, 2013 in Cameras
My new D7100 has some issues.
I'll raise one at a time. Here's one. Consistantly meters a full stop dark. For example, my Sekonic L358 says (incident) 1/500th f/5.6. My D3s shoots at 1/400th f/5.6. The D7100 shoots at 1/1000th f/5.6. This issue's not lens dependent. No exposure bias. These images are SOOC, only converted to jpg for upload to Smugmug. The D7100 shot at 70mm, the D3s at 105mm.

1. D7100
i-kcGzXRk-L.jpg

2. D3s
i-cckgjsL-L.jpg

A third of a stop over or under I could understand, but a full stop? What the heck? :scratch
John :
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.

Comments

  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited April 21, 2013
    What is the source of illumination?

    What exposure program for each camera?
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • ZerodogZerodog Registered Users Posts: 1,480 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    Active D?
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    ziggy53 wrote: »
    What is the source of illumination?

    What exposure program for each camera?

    Daylight. Full shade. Photos taken within seconds.
    Both shot on aperture priority mode.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    Zerodog wrote: »
    Active D?

    No.

    Edit: Color me chagrinned. Active D lighting was set to "High." I have no idea how that was, as I have never used any such in-camera settings in any of my cameras. I discovered this just now when I uploaded to Flickr so I could see more Exif data. Could it possibly have come from the factory set like this??
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • ZerodogZerodog Registered Users Posts: 1,480 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    Yep. Active D does some weird stuff to exposure for sure. It tries really hard to preserve highlights. The result in the end is underexposed images. Try without it and see what you get.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    Thank, Dog! I'm not going to post another boring shot of my calibration target but I did, after turning off the D lighting, take another incident reading followed by a shot with the D7100. Guess what? Both Sekonic and D7100 gave me the same exposure. Let's see how that plays out at tomorrow night's lacrosse game. Underexposure at ISO 6400 has not been pretty.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited April 21, 2013
    Zerodog wrote: »
    Yep. Active D does some weird stuff to exposure for sure. It tries really hard to preserve highlights. The result in the end is underexposed images. Try without it and see what you get.

    Good call. thumb.gif
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • divamumdivamum Registered Users Posts: 9,021 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    clap.gif

    dgrin solution for the win!
  • Matthew SavilleMatthew Saville Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,352 Major grins
    edited April 21, 2013
    Yeah, under-exposing at high ISO's is not going to work very well compared to something like the venerable D3s. Even though I feel that crop sensors are finally beginning to achieve good solid performance at ISO 3200 and even 6400, they still require very close attention to exposure in order to be useful, in my experience.

    =Matt=
    My first thought is always of light.” – Galen Rowell
    My SmugMug PortfolioMy Astro-Landscape Photo BlogDgrin Weddings Forum
  • MileHighAkoMileHighAko Registered Users Posts: 413 Major grins
    edited April 24, 2013
    Zerodog wrote: »
    Yep. Active D does some weird stuff to exposure for sure. It tries really hard to preserve highlights. The result in the end is underexposed images. Try without it and see what you get.

    I didn't realize that Active-D affects the RAW image. I thought all those in-camera manipulations were only implemented on the jpg image, but RAW stayed, well, raw.
  • Matthew SavilleMatthew Saville Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,352 Major grins
    edited April 25, 2013
    I didn't realize that Active-D affects the RAW image. I thought all those in-camera manipulations were only implemented on the jpg image, but RAW stayed, well, raw.

    This is entirely true; if your exposure settings are identical then the in-camera processing is irrelevant. (D-Lighting, as well as Picture Control and even color space)

    However, I believe the problem here may have been that, in Aperture priority, the activation of D-Lighting may cause the camera to under-expose in an effort to preserve highlights, and then just boost the heck out of the shadows...

    =Matt=
    My first thought is always of light.” – Galen Rowell
    My SmugMug PortfolioMy Astro-Landscape Photo BlogDgrin Weddings Forum
  • MomaZunkMomaZunk Registered Users Posts: 421 Major grins
    edited April 25, 2013
    Just one comment about D-Lighting and raw images. It can affect exposure, but there is also some data that is written into the raw file, that the Nikon software can interpret, but adobe and other third party software cannot.
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