EOS 4000D Photos too dark after changing exposure settings for moon photos

[Rebecca1801]

Hi All,

I have a canon eos 4000d and I changed the manual settings when I was taking photos of the moon. Since then my images are coming out dark and I cannot get it back to the factory manual setting

I am kicking myself that I didn't screenshot or write down what it originally was. I am really disheartened with the way the images are coming out.

I have the cannon eos 4000d.

If anyone has this camera please can you advise what the manual settings are ie the jso   F number and 1/... is 

Any information would be much appreciated.  I have always used the manual settings and would like to have it back.

[kvbarkley]

The manual setting is based on the image, there is no one "manual" setting.

[Rebecca1801]

My photos are coming out dark now. What would you recommend it should be on?

[kvbarkley]

"The manual setting is based on the image, there is no one "manual" setting."

What are you shooting?

As above, you adjust the shutter speed or aperture to get the "exposure level mark" to line up with the "exposure level index"

[Rebecca1801]

Mostly outside for autumn trees.

[kvbarkley]

It seems to me you would be better off with "P" mode, but for autumn trees outside you can start with the sunny f/16 rule:

Set the Aperture to F/16 and the shutter speed to 1/ISO. Check the exposure as above and lower the aperture number as required to get the mark to line up with the index.

[Tronhard]

Hi Rebecca and welcome to the forum: 🙂

Really, as my respected colleagues have said, there is no 'default setting' for M mode.  The whole point of the mode is that you control ISO, shutter speed and aperture yourself and the camera makes no decisions for you  This allows you the maximum creative control but relies on you to make a lot more decisions that might be a touch challenging right now.  For controlling exposure, it relies on you looking at the display on the bottom of the screen where there is a vernier going from -3 to 0 to +3.   This is your exposure meter and for most images you want to manipulate the three controls to get the small triangle that represents your exposure at, or close to the 0.  Each of these values represents a doubling (as you move to the right) or halving (as  you move to the left) of the light the camera will capture.

If you want to shoot in M mode, I would recommend watching this video and refer also to your manual.

However, you may find it easier to switch to P mode as my colleague @kvbarkley suggested, or for a bit more control, use Av mode and set the ISO to Auto.  Please refer to  your manual for how to do that.  In that configuration, all you have to do is consider the aperture setting and the others will be configured by the camera to get a reasonable exposure.

Not knowing your experience, but suspecting this is new to you, I would suggest watching this video for an overall introduction:

[stevet1]

Rebecca,

To echo and expand on what kvbarkley said, try putting your camera in P Mode. Go outside and take a little notebook with you. Your camera will set your shutter speed and aperture for you. Take a handful of pictures in different lighting conditions. For each shot, jot down what settings the camera chose, and what the lighting conditions were at the time: sunny, cloudy, time of day, etc. If you feel like you need to increase the shutter speed to freeze motion, or reduce the possibility of motion blur, you can increase the ISO, and the camera will increase your shutter speed to balance out the Exposure.

After a while you'll begin to get a better feel for how you would set those settings yourself in Manual Mode.

Steve Thomas