Originally posted by aglet I find under-exposure is a common issue on all my Pentax bodies and matrix and CWA metering is less predictable than it is on my Nikons or Canons.
Really? On the K-5 IIs? My (vanilla) K-5 has such a strong tendency to over-expose that I almost always have it set to EV -0.3 or -0.7 to avoid unrecoverable blown highlights. The K10D is a completely different story, though, its matrix metering seems to expose for the brightest areas no matter how small they are. The difference between the two cameras is extreme: When my son and I visited New York a month ago, I left my K-5 at EV -0.7 when we were shooting at Times Square late at night. In order to get the K10D, which he now uses, to perform nicely, I had to help him crank compensation up to +1.7 (He could of course just used manual exposure, but he's 14 and just learning to use a DSLR, I didn't want to do too much exposure education in the middle of Times Square at night
)
Btw here's what he got at +1.7 (click for big flickr version):