found the nex a bit frustrating today... the light kept changing and the lens i brought varies from a low of 3.5 to a low of 6.3 - depending on the focal length... at first i tried aperture priority with auto ISO, but the camera kept trying to over expose in bizarre ways... so ended up in manual mode and kept having to shift around between ISO settings and shutter speed... any idea what i was doing wrong?
Cool shot. But I am deathly afraid of snakes, so I can't look too close. :)
This might help explain a little. Auto exposure systems aim to give you an image that is, on average "18% grey." This means that brilliant images, like large expanses of beach sand or snow are often "underexposed" and very dark scenes, like here I imagine, are often "overexposed." using the metered settings. In both situations aiming to give you a standard "mid grey" average summing across the frame. Strangely, this means that you will often have to dial in +EV exposure compensation with very bright scenes and -EV with dark scenes to get the tone that you want. The camera is not doing anything wrong, it is actually doing exactly what the manufacturer designed it to do.
@northy Well, it's misunderstood by most people, exactly what the auto exposure metering is attempting to do, rendering the metered area (whole frame, center or spot depending on the metering mode) to average out at 18% grey. If you have special effects on your camera mode dial, it's exactly what the "low key" and "high key" effects do, under and over expose with respect to "normal" metering. Scene modes too usually compensate in the same way, snow/beach over eposing, night view under exposing.
Could that have messed up the settings?
This might help explain a little. Auto exposure systems aim to give you an image that is, on average "18% grey." This means that brilliant images, like large expanses of beach sand or snow are often "underexposed" and very dark scenes, like here I imagine, are often "overexposed." using the metered settings. In both situations aiming to give you a standard "mid grey" average summing across the frame. Strangely, this means that you will often have to dial in +EV exposure compensation with very bright scenes and -EV with dark scenes to get the tone that you want. The camera is not doing anything wrong, it is actually doing exactly what the manufacturer designed it to do.