Bought a 750D (Rebel T6i) last month - all pictures overexposed

[catchuec]

I bought a Canon 750D last month and used it for my trip to South Africa. I shot in raw format in various modes - Av, Tv, Auto etc. but all my pics are superexposed and all my trip memories are ruined. I have tried to recover a lot of pictures by adjusting the higlights and exposure in Lightroom but many pictures are so white that they are ruined for ever.

Given I have been doing photography for a few years, I am sure it is not about the settings I used. Can somebody let me know what could be the problem. I am uploading a few pictures by converting them to JPEG as is (i.e. without any white balance or exposure adjustment) - you can see what has happened.

I have also tried clearing all settings as mentioned on various forums and taking more pictures but they are still overexposed.

Please help me out - I need to get this rectified soon as I am up for a Mexico trip soon.

[RobertTheFat]

Are you sure you posted the right pictures? The top picture is slightly out of focus, but the exposure is as good as it gets. The bottom picture appears to need fill flash, because the subjects are, if anything, slightly underexposed. If either of those pictures is overexposed, maybe I need new glasses.

[ebiggs1]

If the two samples are what need adjustments in LR, I sugest you need a LR primer course and is not a camera issue.

Either of those could be easily corrected in LR if shot in RAW format.

Both a pretty soft and that may not be possibile to correct.  What lens are you using?  A little composition or crop help too.

[catchuec]

Robert, thanks for a prompt reply. I am posting three more pictures which I think are pretty bright. Also posting edited Lightroom pictures - just for reference of what I want the pictures to look like. This might help you understand my issue and probably give me a tip on what I am doing wrong.

With my previous Canon 500D, I never faced issue where pictures looked washed out to me. Right now, I have 1200 pictures from my 750D, all of which need some exposure / highlight / black/white adjustment in LR.

Ebiggs - Thanks for your comments.I know they can be corrected in LR and I indeed shoot in Raw. But editing large batches of pictures is tiring. Ideally, the softness / whiteness should be corrected while shooting.

I am an amateur / enthusiast and hence, only use an 18-55 lens, mostly in AV mode with auto ISO and no exposure compensation. I correct all such issues later in Raw. But to me it seemed like pictures were bit overexposed - even histogram indicated so.

[ebiggs1 · Accepted solution]

Here is your biggest mistake.

"... mostly in AV mode with auto IS ..."

I suggest you select a ISO and stick with it until you deem it necesary to change it.  I don't like letting the camera use a floating ISO and I never use it.   All the photos you have shared have no real aperture value requirements. What is your reasoning? These shots could be easily done using P (Program mode) and a fixed ISO of 100.

As to the softness issues, you are probably there with the kit lens.  You might alter your own technique and help a bit.  Avoid the largest apertuers and the smallest.

The sky is always an issue.  It is usually many stops different than what your subject is.  You can try different Picture Styles in the menu.  You can make your own to bring out the sky better.  But these are usually only for jpg.

RAW indicates you WANT to post process, jpg says you don't want to.  If you intend to contunue to use RAW, I am afraid you better like the 'tiring' job of editing all your shots.  Do you know how to use presets?  Maybe a course in Lightroom is in order.

[TCampbell]

The top image (woman on walkway/bridge) has the exposure compensation set to +2/3 (meaning... you have asked your camera to deliberately over-expose this image... so it is doing what you asked it to do.)

The bottom image doesn't have embedded EXIF data, so I cannot check the settings.  But I see a gentleman wearing an all-black outfit in the center of the image.  A the metering system will tend to over-expose an image if the metering target is dominated by black/dark tones.  

The sky is a bit over-exposed but this is typical -- given the lighting sitaution.  If this were captured in RAW format that would be fairly easy to adjust.