Exposure issues

[Emancipator]

I am playing around with a D300 and have exposure issues. I am sure it is user end. I put it on aperature-priority mode and when I focus it is always either over or under exposed. Is this something that has to be constantly manually adjusted or is supposed to find itself automatically when I focus? I am coming from P&S land so any advice would be helpful! Thanks.

[Art Scott]

Have you for any reason or someone else set the bracketing mode to something other than 0..........that is the little button on the right side of the camera, while using it, that is beside the lens mount....press that and see what it is exposed to..............also what metering mode are you in.......spot, center weighted...which one, that is only 2 there are more....

[Qarik]

Originally Posted by Emancipator

I am playing around with a D300 and have exposure issues. I am sure it is user end. I put it on aperature-priority mode and when I focus it is always either over or under exposed. Is this something that has to be constantly manually adjusted or is supposed to find itself automatically when I focus? I am coming from P&S land so any advice would be helpful! Thanks.

what exposure mode are you in? matrix, center weighted, or spot? Under/overexposure may occur for the overall imafe if you are in spot metering mode for instance.

[Icebear]

You mention focus in the same sentence as exposure. I just want to make sure we're all looking at the same problem. Does focusing really have an effect on your perceived under/over exposure issue? That would seem to me to indicate a very strange syndrome, unless you really are in spot meter mode, and are cycling from closest possible focus to infinity. Even so, it's hard for me to imagine that it would have the effect you observe.

[Emancipator]

Yes, I suppose focus was a bit wrong to say. But really whenever I refocus the image at a point the exposure will change if the scene varies. The different exposure modes explain why I was experiencing this issue. However, If one is in 3D Matrix metering mode then does it just take in what is closest? Thanks for all the answers.

[Icebear]

I hope this doesn't come across as "snippy." I don't intend it that way, but do you have the manual for the camera? If not, try getting your hands on one of the third party "guidebooks" that are ussually much more user friendly than Nikon's books.

[Qarik]

Originally Posted by Emancipator

Yes, I suppose focus was a bit wrong to say. But really whenever I refocus the image at a point the exposure will change if the scene varies. The different exposure modes explain why I was experiencing this issue. However, If one is in 3D Matrix metering mode then does it just take in what is closest? Thanks for all the answers.

if you are in matrix mode then the exposure should remain fairly consistent if the scene is not changing much. You HAVE to be more specific on what your setting are. Now you are mentioning re-focusing ..are you doing focus and recompose technique? Becasue you may be locking in your exposure when you focus and then by recomposing to a different scene then exposure is off.

[fdisilvestro]

It seems that the D300 gives a lot of attention to the area under the autofocus sensor being used when using matrix metering. So if you change focus from a bright to a dark area, the exposure will change, even if the image as a whole didn't change that much. You can check the review by Thom Hogan here

Another issue that can affect exposure is light coming through the viewfinder

[Icebear]

Originally Posted by fdisilvestro

Another issue that can affect exposure is light coming through the viewfinder

That's a good point, but it only matters if the camera is unattended on a tripod or he's using liveview without the little shutter over the viewfinder. He didn't mention that. From his discription of his shooting, it sounds like he has his eye to the viewfinder.