Suddenly photos on 70d became too dark

[klimchuk]

My 2.5 years old EOS 70D started to deliver very dark pictures, please take a look on example

http://www.realadsb.com/img/IMG_9782.JPG

It's original file from camera, EXIF is available

Shot was done around 6PM. Stone on pic was lit by sun so it's not a low-light situation. I was using automatic mode but same problem exists for manual modes as well. The only way to compensate it was raise exposure +2 or more. That was not the case before. Issue is reproducible with different lens.

Is anybody experienced something like that? 

Can it be dead light sensor?

Thanks in advance

[diverhank]

It's tough to tell from just one picture...does it take dark pictures all the time or just in some instances?

The camera metering system gets severely fooled by two scenarios...background relative to subject is too bright and too dark.  Your subject will be too dark and too bright respectively.

This picture shows one of the toughest scenarios for the camera metering system...the one you must use exposure compensation for.  The worst is probably white snow but this rock is quite bright...even brighter than snow compared to the turtle and the water...You have a super bright piece of rock and very dark subject.  The metering system takes an average and decides that it needs to properly expose the rock and darkens everything else.  The bright rock is very prominent.

While I think the whole thing was too dark (about 2.5 stops) - I would think that the metering system would get fooled up to 1.5 or 2 stops in this case...Too close to call that the camera is defective.

Try a scene that has average dynamic range and see if the camera would underexpose.  My gut feel is it will do alright.  If it underexposes when your subject and background is roughly the same in brightness then I'd say there's something wrong with your camera.  Until then, I think it just got fooled.

[TFRMark]

I just found this thread... I'm having the same issue.

I usually shoot in manual, just for practice, but often miss good shots due to set up time, so have been playing with shutter priority instead. I've tried different times of the day, in different lighting, and all metering modes. Photos almost always show up very under-exposed.

I tested a shot in Auto mode today, and it was iso 100, shutter 200, aperture 8.0

I tried the same shot in Shutter priority with iso 100 and shutter 200, but the aperture jumped way up to 22.

Same in Aperture mode, iso 100, aperture 8.0, and shutter automatically went up to 2500.

Why does it work fine in auto mode, but in one of the two priority modes somehow it thinks it's suddenly twice as bright as it was in auto mode?

[diverhank]

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@TFRMark wrote:

I tried the same shot in Shutter priority with iso 100 and shutter 200, but the aperture jumped way up to 22.

Same in Aperture mode, iso 100, aperture 8.0, and shutter automatically went up to 2500.

Why does it work fine in auto mode, but in one of the two priority modes somehow it thinks it's suddenly twice as bright as it was in auto mode?

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You might want to check the menu to see what kind of metering mode is set for Av, Tv modes...the camera remembers different settings for different modes.  Auto mode will most likely use Evaluative Metering, in Av , Tv and other creative modes, the camera remembers the setting it was last used.  For example if for some reason the metering was set to spot metering or some other modes, the result would be very different from evaluative where an average of the entire scene is used.

Remember, check the menu for each of the modes - they are individually remembered and maybe all different from each other.

[TFRMark]

Thank you, the problem has just been resolved. 

It turns out it was the exposure compensation settings. They were set fully to the left from factory. Centred it and now it's fine.

[RobertTheFat]

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@TFRMark wrote:

Thank you, the problem has just been resolved. 

It turns out it was the exposure compensation settings. They were set fully to the left from factory. Centred it and now it's fine.

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One hopes that was a fluke. Otherwise, it puts a worrisome spin on the term "reset to factory settings".