Canon Digital Rebel Operation question

[willis37862]

I recently purchased a Canon EOS Digital Rebel xt camera. I am still trying to learn all the functions. I have noticed though that the metering/exposure is all over the place. I am not a beginner. I have been working with slr cameras for years and never in the manual mode. I enjoy working with the different settings to get different effects.

So my question is does anyone else have exposure problems? Have you found anything special that makes it work better? Also what settings have you found best for night/fireworks shots?

Thank you to anyone who has some advice/tips. :goodvibes

[AZ JazzyJ]

I'm a Nikon guy myself so I haven't had much experience with the Canon but it almost sounds like your spot meter is tripping out. Does the Rebel XT have a setting where the exposure is connected to the focusing area that is causing a misread? Or has the bracket setting been enabled? Hopefully another Canon owner can chime in with suggestions too.


Jeff

[willis37862]

I'm a Nikon guy myself so I haven't had much experience with the Canon but it almost sounds like your spot meter is tripping out. Does the Rebel XT have a setting where the exposure is connected to the focusing area that is causing a misread? Or has the bracket setting been enabled? Hopefully another Canon owner can chime in with suggestions too.


Jeff

Not sure about the exposure connected to focusing area. I know the bracketing hasn't been enabled, checked that. It has the three metering modes to pick from. Tried all three still get crazy exposure settings. It wants to overexpose and wash out backgrounds. It sets the shutter speed low , which is driving me nuts. Thanks for the suggestions though.

[PaulD]

Evaluative metering on the Canons link exposure to the active focus points giving those points more weight during the metering calculation. This can sometimes be a source of inconsistent exposures if you let the camera pick it's own focus points in a shot. The way to control this is to force an active focus point. I have mine set to the center focus point pretty much all the time. Try locking your focus point and see if that helps.

As far as ambient light exposures go I've always found the Canons to be really good. I use the original dRebel at home and the 10D at work and find them to be really consistent. If you're having overexposure problems and you're not new to metering then you might just have a defective camera. If you could post an example with the settings used (can we do this on this forum?) then maybe we could better determine if your camera is defective or if you're just not familiar with the metering systems. It sounds like you've got some experience so it may be a hardware probelm. Also, are you having trouble with all exposures or just in certain situations?

If you're having trouble with flash metering then that's a totally different issue and one that many people have had. Hopefully we don't have to go there...

PaulD