D70 exposure

twgreen3 · Aug 21, 2006

I noticed the other day while taking pictures with a friend of mine who has a D50 ( I have a D70) That his exposures were a lot brighter than mine. I always knew that my camera took Dark pictures. The only differences were the lens and speed light. He has a digital lens and I have a 35mm Nikon lens. He also doesn't have a speed light and i have the SB600. Am I doing something wrong or does the D70 tend to expose towards the dark side? Thanks for the help.

Tiberius · Aug 21, 2006

There are a lot of other factors here - did either of you have exposure compensation on? What metering were you using?

On my D50, when I use Matrix Metering I leave the camera at -0.7 exposure as my "Standard" shooting point and overexpose or underexpose relative to that point, since leaving it at 0 tends to blow out the highlights a bit. With Spot or Center-Weighted Metering, however, 0.0 seems just fine.

DepthAfield · Aug 21, 2006

twgreen3 said:
Am I doing something wrong or does the D70 tend to expose towards the dark side? Thanks for the help.

I doubt you are doing anything wrong. The D70 does tend to under expose a bit.

Digital Matt · Aug 21, 2006

Wow, there are so many factors. What mode were you shooting in? Exposure comp, as mentioned?

You said you had a flash and he did not. Were you trying to use your flash while he was using available light? It's hard to even compare.

Were you comparing the images on the LCD screens on the backs of your camera, or did you view them on a computer?

Was the light changing? Were you photographing the same scenes as he was?

twgreen3 · Aug 21, 2006

We were both using the matrix metering and viewing them on the computer. Shooting the same scene at the same time form the same angle. This was done just to test my theory. No exp. comp. on either camera. He was using no speed light and had a digital lens those were the only differences as far as I know.

JDP · Aug 21, 2006

twgreen3 said:
We were both using the matrix metering and viewing them on the computer. Shooting the same scene at the same time form the same angle. This was done just to test my theory. No exp. comp. on either camera. He was using no speed light and had a digital lens those were the only differences as far as I know.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe I read SOMEWHERE on the web (or in one of the million books I have) that the D50, by default, is setup to take brighter pictures then a D70 because it's made to be more 'non-photographer friendly' then the D70. It might have been on this forum where I read it actually, someone talking about needing to adjust exposure settings on the D70 where as on the D50 it was set for them.