Canon 20D Metering Question??

[MikeCT]

I have the 20D and it seems to meter on the uderexposure side in Auto Mode and I really have to play around with settings in the manual mode to get a decent exposure. Could my camera's meter be defective or is there a better place for information than is given in the manual? Thanks.

[Ian]

Re: Canon 20D Metering Question??

I tend to notice that more 'serious' a camera is, the less tendency it has to over expose, often tending to slightly under expose. The 20D is definitely a serious camera This has been discussed a lot and the consensus seems to be that it's safer to under expose and to avoid potential loss of highlight detail. I know a lot of photographers who routinely set their cameras to -0.3 EV.

Can you post some unedited examples so we can see the exposure for ourselves?

Ian

[Josh Bear]

Re: Canon 20D Metering Question??

Hi mike,

I have the 20d and am happy with the slight underexposure. I shoot in RAW and therefore this gives me much much greater flexibility to get the most out of the digital negative.(including increasing exposure). Do you shoot in RAW?

Best Regards

Josh

[Danny Chau]

Re: Canon 20D Metering Question??

I have the 20D and it seems to meter on the uderexposure side in Auto Mode and I really have to play around with settings in the manual mode to get a decent exposure. Could my camera's meter be defective or is there a better place for information than is given in the manual? Thanks.

Hi Mike, I always shoot about 2/3 to 1 stop under with digital cameras, where with film I tend to over by the same amount, this is due to the fact that if you over expose the highlight, nothing will be recorded in digital, but underexposure in digital does not have the same detrimental effect as in film, we can generally able to get lots more detail back from the shadow area, your 20D is already doing half the job for you.

Danny