Canon EOS400D - Exposure Question

[The Mighty2006]

Ok so I was out taking photos on the weekend (also at home) and I had an issue with the exposure of the photos. I own the Canon 400D (f/2.8 24-70 L Series Lens).


Some of the backgrounds were white - like a bathroom vanity.
The objects were material
It was natural light.You may ask me for a picture but I don't have them anymore as I was annoyed that they didn't turn out well.

When I viewed them on the LCD they looked just about right. The white of the vanity came out well. The colour of the material was right but then when I viewed them on the compute screen they looked shocking.

The screen I am viewing them on is one of the old bulky glass monitors - LG Studioworks 773N.

The event I went to on Sat night was a football game I don't even want to mention the state of the photos from that night.

The QUESTION is - Why do I have to increase the AV+/- up 1 stop to get the right exposure? Maybe I just had a bad weekend of taking photos - Anyone else experience that?

Regards,

Me

[The Mighty2006]

503

This is the after one!

504

This is the before one!

Ok so these are some of the photos.

[sdjl]

Can you post any of the settings you used to take the above photo of pins?
That could help in better understanding how you're taking the photos and what could be altered.

David

[inkista]

... Some of the backgrounds were white - like a bathroom vanity. ...

The QUESTION is - Why do I have to increase the AV+/- up 1 stop to get the right exposure?Short answer? Because the backgrounds were white. :D

You need to learn how the metering and autoexposure in your camera works. Essentially, it's averaging all of the light in the photo, and setting the midpoint value to middle grey. The upshot of this is that if you pick a predominantly white scene, white gets set to grey, and you get a darker image than you saw. If you pick a predominantly black scene, black gets set to grey, and you get a lighter image than you saw. This is why we like having the ability to set exposure compensation on the fly for each image, and why learning to shoot in manual mode is a good thing. :)

[Olddawg]

I agree with SDJL one needs to know what the setting were when the photos were taken and also what result you were trying to achieve ie. all the pins in focus or just some of them .
the main question i would ask what aperture did you use
2nly what metering did you use
3rdly what was the shutter speed
and did you use the exposure compensation

[Tiberius]

If your camera is consistently giving under or over exposed photos when it shouldn't, try resetting it to the factory settings. That works for me.