My photos are too dark!

[Contegni]

Hi everybody, I hope you had a nice holiday.

I received an Olympus e-520 for Christmas yesterday and it came with a 14-42mm lens. I was taking some indoor pictures earlier today of my dog in relatively good light but most of them were REALLY dark. I was shooting in shutter priority and even at around 1/30 and down to 1/15 at f3.5 with ISO 400, the pictures were still ugly, soft and dark. I'm a little confused. Am I doing something wrong? Can I do anything to make my pictures better?

Thanks and God bless!

 

[forzabrian]

Try bumping up the ISO 800 - 1600

 

[mrodgers]

Check the exposure compensation (EV). If you are in a priority mode, the camera will try to get the correct exposure no matter how you adjust the other setting. If they are dark, I would guess that you've inadvertently bumped your EV down without knowing it.

Check your manual for exposure compensation or EV.

 

[inTempus]

Discover P mode.

Bump your ISO setting up to 800+ and set your camera to P and see what you get.

I've also found that adjusting the WB to something like Tungsten can help in some instances vs. Auto.

 

[Contegni]

Thanks for the responses!

I bumped my ISO to 800 and it did help a little. I forgot to mention in my first post that I had exposure compensation to +2 while getting dark results. Is there anything else it could be?

 

[Jon0807]

Sounds like exposure compensation as mrogers said or your metering off something very light. Could you post an example with possibly the exif data?

 

[Contegni]

ISO 400
f5.6 (max)
1/15
42mm

This picture was taken in fairly good lighting

 

[Jon0807]

Camera Make: OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.
Camera Model: E-520
Image Date: 2008:12:26 13:13:34
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 42.0mm
Exposure Time: 0.067 s (1/15)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: 1.30
White Balance: Auto
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: shutter priority (semi-auto)
Exposure Mode: Manual


I believe that's where the problem is. Tho I thought an underexposure was negative?

 

[Contegni]

Hold on, I thought the picture was overexposed. I also thought I had it at +2. What do you mean?

 

[Jurence]

Go to program mode, what is the dial at? (-2 -1 0 +1 +2)?

 

[Jon0807]

The photo is definitely underexposed. I'm not too familiar with your camera but this may actually be flash compensation that's being adjusted.

 

[Contegni]

+1.3

 

[tsaraleksi]

When you are in shutter priority mode it can only open up the lens as far as the lens will go, which means that you can get bad underexposure pretty easily in Tv.

Put the camera in 'P' mode and see what kind of settings it's giving you. It may be that you don't have as much light as you thought: the human eye adjusts to the lightening conditions in such a way that it's very difficult for us to gauge what is good light for a camera. The only way to be able to tell is simply experience with similar conditions.

 

[Jurence]

Take a picture of a light and post it please

 

[Jon0807]

When you are in shutter priority mode it can only open up the lens as far as the lens will go, which means that you can get bad underexposure pretty easily in Tv.

I just played with my camera and indeed I was getting underexposures in Tv mode no matter how much I set my exposure compensation to because the shutter is limited to how far it can open. The f/ number was actually flashing which meant it couldn't achieve proper exposure with the limited MAX shutter opening. So try in P or Av mode and you should get better results