Photos Too Bright

[Arubalisa]

I have an Olympus 5000. Try and try again, on real bright days with lots of sunshine, even with the sun behind me, the photos come out too bright. If I get lucky :rolleyes: a "good" photo will have "only" a white sky. Many times the photo looks over exposed. I have tried both the auto and "program" (manual) settings and not much difference there.

[zackiedawg]

I have an Olympus 5000. Try and try again, on real bright days with lots of sunshine, even with the sun behind me, the photos come out too bright. If I get lucky :rolleyes: a "good" photo will have "only" a white sky. Many times the photo looks over exposed. I have tried both the auto and "program" (manual) settings and not much difference there.

 

Sounds like it could be a few different problems. Check out these things to see if it helps:

 

1. Make sure your ISO is set to the lowest setting. At a higher ISO, the camera may not be able to get a fast enough shutter or close the aperature enough to compensate on a very bright day. Digital cameras tend to give better colors and less noise at lower ISOs anyway...so you may want to try the lowest setting (not sure on your camera, but it will probably be 64 or 100). If you are in Auto ISO...maybe the camera is making some bad choices...so manually setting it may help.

 

2. Check metering mode. Your camera can meter in two different modes - multi-point and spot. Possibly, your camera's metering system isn't able to judge landscapes and skies as well in multi mode...so if you are in that mode, it could be part of the problem. Try setting the camera to Spot metering mode if not already. Then, when shooting, you'll see a little crosshairs in the middle of the screen - whatever you point to with that little crosshairs is what the camera will meter off of. This may require some sensitivity on your part, because you'll see drastic differences in metering as you move the crosshairs over darker and lighter subjects. It is usually best to find something in the shot to meter off of that gives you the lighting you want, then half-press the shutter button to lock focus and metering, recompose the shot the way you want, and fully press the shutter.

 

3. Are you somehow inadvertently set to Aperature Priority or Shutter Priority mode, and have too high a value chosen? If you are in aperature priority and set to the widest aperature (F2.8), it may be letting in far too much light for the camera to handle. Also, if you have too slow a shutter speed in shutter priority mode...same thing.

 

4. Hopefully this won't be the issue, but your sensor could be going bad. If you've checked out everything above, and it still is severely blowing out the highlights, the sensor may have either been damaged (pointing at the sun, or pixel burnout) or is just giving up. If this is the case, time for a repair or a new camera, I'm afraid.

 

Good luck!

[mountainhouse]

Couple of other thoughts...

- Have you tried to view the photo on other computer monitors. Just making sure it's not your monitor.

- You should be able to judge brightness fairly well using the camera's display. It it looks too bright there adjust the exposure on a camera a bit, by using the +/- function. It works differently on various cameras, but they most all have it. - makes it darker and + makes it lighter.

[Arubalisa]

Thanks! I am going to try your suggestions later on today. I know it is not the computer monitor. I use both a laptop and PC regularly.

[Kamloops50]

I have an Olympus 5000. Try and try again, on real bright days with lots of sunshine, even with the sun behind me, the photos come out too bright. If I get lucky :rolleyes: a "good" photo will have "only" a white sky. Many times the photo looks over exposed. I have tried both the auto and "program" (manual) settings and not much difference there.

most digital cameras have a setting in the setup menu for outside pictures.

i've used four different digital cameras and never had a problem. i use my camera on a snow field on a sunny day with no problem. NOTE: don't take pictures directly into the sun. this could damage the electronivs.