Not getting accurate exposure reading through lcd

ethan · 22 Sep 2019 at 21:57

... How then can you apply exposure compensation if the monitor isn't providing accurate information?
I've been fooled by the lcd before when everything appeared spot on only to find some of the shots were slightly underexposed and noisy on the skin tones and dark areas. The histogram is only available on live view, not through the viewfinder on a D850, which doesn't help.

Raymond Lin · 22 Sep 2019 at 21:58

ethan said:
... How then can you apply exposure compensation if the monitor isn't providing accurate information?
I've been fooled by the lcd before when everything appeared spot on only to find some of the shots were slightly underexposed and noisy on the skin tones and dark areas. The histogram is only available on live view, not through the viewfinder on a D850, which doesn't help.

That's what the Histogram is for.

ethan · 22 Sep 2019 at 23:10

I was, perhaps naively hoping you could access the histogram data through the viewfinder on the D850 but you can't. I'm assuming because it is an optical viewfinder so it's only available on the LCD at the back of the camera on pressing the Live view button. I'd previously got in to the habit of using an electronic viewfinder where it was available.

Some of the issues I had been having involved smudge-like skin tones and noisy artifacts in dark areas. I've sorted it now.
When I was talking about the histogram being available on the back lcd and not helping, I was thinking of the Weight of some of the heavy telephotos I was using and the difficulty in having to hold the camera and lense whilst looking at it, not that I didn't know what it was for

a1ex2001 · 23 Sep 2019 at 12:02

Bracket your exposure or chimp! a slight under or over exposure shouldn't be an issue to recover in post assuming you are shooting raw and shouldn't introduce ton's of noise

Columbo · 24 Sep 2019 at 12:39

I use the histogram now but when I used an optical viewfinder I simply exposed half a stop to the left or right depending whether the scene was full of highlights or shadow / dark areas.
Have you tried different metering options because that may have an impact on the exposure?

ethan · 24 Sep 2019 at 22:43

Columbo said:
I use the histogram now but when I used an optical viewfinder I simply exposed half a stop to the left or right depending whether the scene was full of highlights or shadow / dark areas.
Have you tried different metering options because that may have an impact on the exposure?

Just going through the motions. As far as I can tell , the only issue is the shadows. I've read raw conversion can have an effect so I'll check to rule that out. I never gave the chance of under exposure a second thought assuming I'd be ok for a couple of stops but there's also too much noise for my liking to compensate.

Columbo · 25 Sep 2019 at 07:32

ethan said:
Just going through the motions. As far as I can tell , the only issue is the shadows. I've read raw conversion can have an effect so I'll check to rule that out. I never gave the chance of under exposure a second thought assuming I'd be ok for a couple of stops but there's also too much noise for my liking to compensate.

I'd read that the D850 however has huge latitude in the RAW files giving ability to lift shadows and rescue highlights, I've never used one but when I shot with D3's and D750's that was certainly the case for me, particularly at ISO 100-800, this seemed to reduce a lot from that point but are you finding that's not the case for you?

RAW conversion can certainly make a difference as different software solutions will interpret the file in their own way but there is no better way than simply compensating the exposure for the subject / scene in my view. I've tried a few different raw convertors and honestly I can't tell the difference probably because I don't push the files or use any advanced techniques in Photoshop.

ethan · 27 Sep 2019 at 17:23

Hmm. I'm beginning to think it's a firmware problem to do with the lens as everything is working using manual focus.

My 120-300mm F2.8 won't auto focus in live view and you need to use live view to read the histogram. Live view works fine on my other lenses with AF so there's no issue with them.

ethan · 27 Sep 2019 at 19:57

I think I'm stuffed with there being no firmware update for this. (Sigma & Nikon). I tried it on my D750 and it worked for a few seconds prior to producing the same issue with the D850. The only way to use it through the live view LCD is through manual focusing (which I suppose isn't the end of the world).

If everything is bang on there shouldn't be any reason why I can't make the adjustments manually through the live view LCD for the first shot and then revert back to the optical viewfinder for the others (keeping the same settings should I need).