Why my photo is darker??

[adikrist]

It often happens that my wife photo is brighter than my photo. Somehow the face, body, and scene in my photo are darker than those in her photo. Both photos are taken with same camera setting, same distance to object, same spot, only slightly different angle.
Why did it happen? Is it related to skin color or color of the clothing i wearing?

 

[tirediron]

It's hard to say, although it could well be related to differences of skin and clothing colour. Could you post an example of each, preferably with EXIF data?

 

[rusty9]

:addpics:

 

[freeze3kgt]

what setting is your metering mode set at? spot, centered, or the whole picture * matrix in nikons i think its called not sure about others*


if your at different angles it maybe that the metering is changing a bit

 

[Taylor510ce]

Are you both shooting in the same file format? ( Jpeg or RAW ?? ) Does one of you have a filter on their lens?

 

[ann]

photos would help, but just the message "slightly different angle" could be an issue. The meters in these cameras are very sensitive and it doesn't take much for a slight movement in what the lens is looking at to change the exposure.
Perhaps your taller and are point the lens "down" and your wife may be shorter and is tilting upward. Upward brings sky into the picture, down the ground; these areas will influence the metering.

 

[adikrist]

Hi,
sorry, took me quite a while to learn how to upload the image here.

So, here it is..
You see my wife photo on the left is brighter than mine, although position, distance to the background, etc are same. And we didn't change any camera settings, exposure level, etc.

 

[tirediron]

Unfortunately there is no useful EXIF data (The information such as shutter-speed, aperture, etc that the camera embeds in the image) however looking at it, it's clear to me that the image on the right is at least one stop darker than than that on the left. My only guess is that your camera was set on either 'Automatic' or a semi-automatic mode (Aperture or Shutter priority) and made changes without your knowledge.

 

[Josh66]

My money is on the difference in clothing.

Although, since her shirt is brighter - I would expect that photo to be darker...

Which mode was the camera on? In every mode except for Manual, even if you don't change anything, the settings could still be slightly different from shot to shot.

For example, if you were in Aperture Priority - the aperture would never change, but the shutter speed could - resulting in a slightly different exposure.

 

[adikrist]

I dont have the EXIF data. Is this something i need to take note after taking picture, or can i see it using Photoshop or other software?

The camera mode was on automatic (P). I think it made changes on shutter and aperture, due to different angle and the lens pointing down/up.

 

[Josh66]

It should be automatically saved into the picture file by the camera. Find the picture on the computer, right click on it then go to properties. The exif should be somewhere in there. On my machine it's under the 'Details' tab.

 

[adikrist]

Yes.. found the data..

Her pic: shutter 1/83, aperture f/6.4, F number F/6.3
My pic: shutter 1/83, aperture f/5.7, F number F/5.6

So same shutter speed, did the aperture make different brightness? i thought aperture only related to the sharpness of the image in the depth of field. What does the F number mean?
Can anyone explain this to me?

Thank you.

 

[Josh66]

The aperture and f/number are the same thing. The f number is just rounded to the nearest third of a stop. The aperture is showing what it actually was.

And yes, aperture does affect exposure the same way shutter speed does.

That's weird though, her pic is stopped down more, so it should be the one that's darker. She also has brighter clothes on, so that would also make hers the darker one (if it was a metering related problem).

The settings and the clothes you guys were wearing would both suggest the opposite result of what happened...

Maybe it was just a cloud passing by...?

 

[tirediron]

Both the aperture and shutter speed control the amount of light, shutter speed also affects the perception of movement, and you're right aperture does affect sharpness (how much of the image is in focus), but both control the amount of light. "F" is a term used to denote aperture, as in "F2.8" (Don't worry about the math behind it, just accept it). Judging from this I'm certain my above post is correct except that this shows the difference to be more like 2/3 of a stop

 

[tirediron]

The aperture and f/number are the same thing. The f number is just rounded to the nearest third of a stop. The aperture is showing what it actually was.

And yes, aperture does affect exposure the same way shutter speed does.

That's weird though, her pic is stopped down more, so it should be the one that's darker. She also has brighter clothes on, so that would also make hers the darker one (if it was a metering related problem).

The settings and the clothes you guys were wearing would both suggest the opposite result of what happened...

Maybe it was just a cloud passing by...?

How d'ya figger? Same shutter speed, his image taken at f 5.6 or about 2/3 stop more open than her's at f6.3. Bigger opening = more light = darker image.