D40x Exposure Issue

fdnl13

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Greetings.

I seem to be having an issue with my Nikon D40x's exposure or ISO settings. I have it set to the Auto ISO setting, but the exposures in my photos vary significantly from photo to photo. For example, I may take two nearly identical shots of a beach scene. One will look great, the next one, taken a second or two later, will be vastly underexposed to the point where you can barely make anything out. Does this sound like a mechanical failure needing repair service, or operator error?
 
Welcome to the forum.

Can you show us some examples? If you are shooting in any of the auto modes, the camera's internal (reflected) light meter will determine the exposure settings....and as such, it uses what it's seeing (based on the metering mode). So if you are metering on one thing, then meter on something else (even if the scene is otherwise the same), you may get vastly different results.

So to diagnose the problem, we need more information.
 
Yeah....what metering method are you set on? Matrix will give you the most consistent results. Spot metering will meter on what your AF point is on so the overal exposure will vary depending on how much light is on the spot the meter is using.
 
Yep. Spot metering only measures the light in about 2% of the viewfinder, and the point used is concurrent with the selected focus point, unless you have Closest Subject selected as the AF-area mode. The D40x spot meters at the center focus point location only.

Center-weighted metering looks at the entire scene but assigns greater weight to how much light is in the central portion of the viewfinder.

Matrix mode is the least overall useful metering mode because it just averages the entire viewfinder scene.

All this info is in the D40x user's manual.
 
Thanks for the replies. The meter setting is grayed out, saying, "This option is not available with current settings." My guess is because it's set to Auto mode.

Below are two examples of nearly identical images with completely different exposures. Any input is welcome!

$Light.jpg$Dark.jpg
 

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