Lighting fine in camera too dark in Lightroom

[Daryl Everett]

I'm not sure if this is the right area for this question but it seems to be the best fit. I took pictures of a family tonight and my off camera flash wasn't working correctly so I went with out it. The pictures looked fine when I checked them as I was shooting using the playback and previews. Once I downloaded them and imported them to lightroom they are very dark. Lightroom auto tones then between 1 and 3 stops! What's going on? Is it Lightroom? They appear to be autotoned on import in Picasa because they aren't dark there.

[autofocus]

I think your in camera histogram should tell the exposure tale. How does that look for the shots? Forget how they look in the camera's LCD..they almost always look good there. I don't work in Lightroom, but I know ACR will do an autofix...no reason to have to go with it though

[Doug Sundseth]

Appearance of brightness when seen on a monitor (including the one on the back of the camera) depends strongly on the ambient lighting. If you're shooting where it's dark, the image on the back of the camera will look quite bright even if it's underexposed. I've had this happen often enough that when I'm shooting in low light I always have my histogram showing so that I have a better idea of what I've shot.

[arlon]

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

when I'm shooting in low light I always have my histogram showing so that I have a better idea of what I've shot.

Amen and Ditto that. Learn how to use your histograms, they can be a very useful tool.

[i speak in math]

Originally Posted by Daryl Everett

I'm not sure if this is the right area for this question but it seems to be the best fit. I took pictures of a family tonight and my off camera flash wasn't working correctly so I went with out it. The pictures looked fine when I checked them as I was shooting using the playback and previews. Once I downloaded them and imported them to lightroom they are very dark. Lightroom auto tones then between 1 and 3 stops! What's going on? Is it Lightroom? They appear to be autotoned on import in Picasa because they aren't dark there.

So...what lighting are you using? Why is this in the lighting section and not the PP section?