Nikon D500 LCD screen and overexposed pictures

Hi

I seem to be having a problem.

Nikon D500

I take a picture underwater, review it on the LCD screen and it looks correctly exposed. Above the water it seems to be overexposed (once on my laptop) and I am finding it difficult to judge how a picture will look while taking it.

Anyone have any ideas?? Or is this just something I have to get used to?

Thanks

Have you tried reviewing the exposure underwater using the histogram? This will give you a good idea on how much light is hitting the sensor and the levels of the exposure.

You could also try adjusting the brightness of the LCD screen to give you a better presentation of the exposure of the image underwater. This could be a bit hit and miss till you get the level right.

Although I find generally that the image appears correct on the LCD but can be a bit underexposed in reality!

Other than I’d suggest it’s practice till you have a good feeling comparing the screen and histogram with the final result. But adjusting the LCD should really help.

Hi Tim

Thanks for your reply.

I was afraid someone was going to say that!

I will start with adjusting the LCD a little and see what happens. I was hoping there may have been something set wrong.

I had the same problem but with underexposed videos on my external monitor.

I have since lowered my monitors brightness to give it another go next week in the Banda sea. Ill try to get back here and report my results.

This was with the gh4 and smallhd 501 monitor but the principle is the same.

Aquaman

Hopefully you are shooting RAW and using some image processing software like Lightroom to correct the exposure. Many photographers advise "expose to the right" to capture maximum detail and the pull it down in post. You can do some amazing things with a little practice with the software.

Also review your camera settings and strobe power vs your images and think about adjustments that are going to bring your pictures to where you want them in camera. Feel free to post a sample.

Hopefully you are shooting RAW and using some image processing software like Lightroom to correct the exposure. Many photographers advise "expose to the right" to capture maximum detail and the pull it down in post. You can do some amazing things with a little practice with the software.

 

Also review your camera settings and strobe power vs your images and think about adjustments that are going to bring your pictures to where you want them in camera. Feel free to post a sample.

Hi Dave

I am shooting in raw, but I would rather get the exposure somewhere right in the first place rather than do too much on the computer!

My problem isn't strobe power etc... The picture I am seeing on the screen underwater looks to be properly exposed then when it's transferred to the computer it's actually overexposed.

This means taking a picture that looks underexposed and hoping it comes out right, so it seems to be more guess work at the moment.

Hi Tim

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

I was afraid someone was going to say that!

 

I will start with adjusting the LCD a little and see what happens. I was hoping there may have been something set wrong.

Hmmm, hard to say if something is set incorrectly without seeing all the settings, the results and the histogram - and the depth and luminosity of the dive environment. If it’s seriously overexposed but looks right on your LCD, it’d be worth checking if the LCD setting is broadly “central” or is it set low? Therefore the LCD screen “sees” less light than has hit the camera sensor.

I’m not sure there is a simple fix other than “suck it and see, trial and error”. What sort of depth were you? I can find the problem you outline at shallower depths. Could it be that?

If you use the histogram there should be no guess work, if it looks right at depth but is actually overexposed then the histogram should be pushed to the right. So picking the option that shows the histogram and the image from the display options should make it possible to get the exposure correct. If you really want to look at the image to judge exposure then the histogram can also help. Take shots at depth and adjust until the histogram is right, go to monitor brightness settings and adjust the brightness till the image looks right at depth.

If your histogram is "right" on the over exposed shots in camera, then perhaps there is a preset active in your raw conversion program which is boosting exposure which you then have to bring back down again.

If the over exposure is consistent a further option is to develop a preset which pulls back exposure the required number of stops for all of your underwater shots.

Another possibility is that you monitor is too bright.

I only use the screen on the back to determine if the flash went off, etc.
Looking at the histogram is a good answer, but if you are really going to count on the screen on the back of your camera when using it underwater do this.
Take a photograph of a ten tone step wedge or X-rite colour checker. Take a look at the screen on land. Next dive, take a look at what it looks like in the water. I am sure it will look very different. remember the differences. That will tell you how much your screen looks off while in the water.
The colours will definitely shift, thats your brain trying to out think you, but the more important is making sure that you see the steps as being separate and not all bunched together at either end. If sos, adjust your screen.

Hmmm, hard to say if something is set incorrectly without seeing all the settings, the results and the histogram - and the depth and luminosity of the dive environment. If it’s seriously overexposed but looks right on your LCD, it’d be worth checking if the LCD setting is broadly “central” or is it set low? Therefore the LCD screen “sees” less light than has hit the camera sensor.

 

I’m not sure there is a simple fix other than “suck it and see, trial and error”. What sort of depth were you? I can find the problem you outline at shallower depths. Could it be that?

I looked earlier at the settings for the display and they were set to 0 if that's what you meant?

I am finding it at all depths from the surface down.

Maybe the answer is to learn to use the histogram and hope that does the trick.

Should be easily correctable in post. I realize that's not the answer you're looking for, but sometimes we gotta do things we don't really want to do... The D500 holds up well to even heavy-handed exposure adjustments - going from bright to dark is much better on noise than dark to light. Personally, I don't expose to the right anymore. I'd rather underexpose, ensure my subject is sharp with no motion blur, and then bring up the shadows in post. The amount of detail you can bring back from an underexposed photo, to me, is more than you can bring back from an overexposed shot with significant clipped highlights.

Your histogram will look very different depending on the conditions or type of shooting you're doing. The histogram on a blackwater dive will look much, much different than the histogram of a correctly exposed shot in a perfectly clear spring-fed stream. I don't know what conditions you're shooting in, but images with dark(er) backgrounds and strobe-lit foregrounds/subjects should show a bunching up toward the left of the histogram (blue ocean water won't bunch as far toward the shadows as, obviously, jet black conditions at night), but it should gradually taper off into brighter zones. If the taper ends abruptly in the first or second zone then you've underexposed, perhaps too much (though see above for my thoughts on this).

Clear Caribbean Sea water or clear spring-fed creek water under bright sun will probably yield a more classic hump-shaped histogram with brightness values gradually increasing from the shadows to a peak in the midtones and then tapering off toward the highlights.

Kinda hard to explain without using histograms as examples, but at least maybe this will give you an excuse to go for another dive!

I looked earlier at the settings for the display and they were set to 0 if that's what you meant?

I am finding it at all depths from the surface down.

Maybe the answer is to learn to use the histogram and hope that does the trick.

"0" is the mid-point and default setting for the screen brightness on the D500 - so nothing inherently wrong there.

Chris (and CFA) makes good points about using the histogram to help you gauge the exposure and how that impacts on the screen. But, as CFA explains, the type of water you are in also makes a big difference to what the histogram will look like. As examples, I have lots of shots from Lembeh where everything is jammed against the left hand side of the histogram so, in theory, the pic might look underexposed. But in practice, it's spot-on - welI, I think so anyway! - as the image is shot against a jet-black background which really impacts on the histogram read-out.

You could try increasing screen brightness a bit - say to +1 or +2 and see what the result is with your D500 camera image playback set so that you see both the screen image and the histogram at the same time. You could then get a better feel for what's happening. But do bear in mind the lighting and turbidity conditions in the water, They have a big impact.

Hi guys

Thanks for all your comments on this.

I have just looked back over and compared some images since I have been using the D500 and diving in UK conditions the images do seem to be okay. That seems to me to indicate that it is in brighter conditions, at the surface in the UK and abroad in tropical waters etc. is where I am having the issue.

I asked the question because I had an Olympus OMD Em1 before the D500 and never had any issues like this at all, what I saw on the screen when taking the picture was how it looked on the computer.

Maybe I should just try taking the screen brightness up a touch if I am shooting in brighter conditions and see if I can use the histograms, although as I shoot in a wide range of conditions it sounds like it will still be hit and miss.

Use the histogram, keep your ISO low for tropical, set shutter speed for the blues you want and set the clipping view on your monitor in the replay settings. I tried turning my screen lower because my pictures were too dark and didn't have much luck. Just made it harder to see underwater.

+1 on the highlights clipping view on the LCD image review. Regardless of screen brightness or histogram you can see at a glance that the image is blown out. I use this as my default view.

Another onebfor histogram and clipping screen.

Use the view screen for gross exposure and composition.

As others have stated, black water is a different situation.

Thanks for all your replies.

I am now looking into the histograms...

Am I right in assuming that the only histogram on the review screen is the split one showing the four histograms for the different colours?

Thanks for all your replies.

 

I am now looking into the histograms...

Am I right in assuming that the only histogram on the review screen is the split one showing the four histograms for the different colours?

Have a look at p261 of the manual. There are a couple of histogram options plus the “highlights” option which might be useful.

Have a look at p261 of the manual. There are a couple of histogram options plus the “highlights” option which might be useful.

Thanks Tim.

Thanks Tim.

👍🏻