Images ok in program mode (t4!) but very dark in manual.

[1alfie]

Using my 40mm prime lens I took a photo outside in normal lighting conditions.  ISO-100, f5.6, 1/125...  Images were so dark I could make nothing out.  Initially thought the lens had been damaged.  Took the same photo in program mode and image was quite good.  Obviously not the lens.  Is there a setting on the camera that could have been accidentally changed that would cause this problem.

[cicopo]

Did you use the built in light meter to arrive at those settings or just guess? Manual requires YOU to set things as required using the meter reading.

[ebiggs1 · Accepted solution]

"I took a photo outside in normal lighting conditions.  ISO-100, f5.6, 1/125...  Images were so dark ..."

OK, first what is "normal lighting"?  If you mean regular daylight with a nice Sun and few if any clouds, that exposure would have been way over exposed.  It would have been very washed out.  Not dark!  The Sunny Rule is ISO 100, f16, 1/125.  That will make a good photo.  You don't need a light meter to do this.  That setting will work.  It makes no matter what camera or what lens.