[scatron]

Shooting during my daughter's soccer game today and when I looked at the results at home, the exposure seemed to be different even though I was shooting in manual. I'll try to post two consecutive photos, one has good exposure, one is over-exposed, even though the camera settings are identical.

So what's going on?

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[jawsy]

Check to ensure you don't have exposure bracketing on.

If not, I've had issues like this whenever I've had depleted batteries in a flash unit attached to the hot shoe. Other than that, I'm stumped.

[Pizza]

Looks like the EXIF data is exactly the same exposure settings. If you are shooting in the fastest burst mode, perhaps the aperture of your lens is sticking and not closing down to the desired aperture fast enough between shots? Is it an older or newer lens?

I've had the same problem with an A prime lens before. Had the first few shots of a session expose properly, then noticed if I switched the burst mode, only the first shot would be exposed properly. Took off the lens and played with the aperture lever and noticed it was sticking. Maybe try removing your lens and lightly testing your aperture lever?

Also: It looks like the DOF is narrower in the overexposed photo compared to the correctly exposed one. Which makes me think it is a similar problem. Was the correctly exposed photo taken first? (Actually, just judged by the photo content that the top photo was taken before the second one, guessing the players weren't moving backwards. :P)

[Paul the Sunman]

Were these jpeg or RAW? If RAW, the software you are using to develop it may for some reason be making random choices about correct exposure. If you have another piece of software, e.g. DCU, check to see if it's the same there too.

[max_pyne]

. Took off the lens and played with the aperture lever and noticed it was sticking. Maybe try removing your lens and lightly testing your aperture lever?

yep looks like that to me. Had once a similar problem with a lens, activating the aperture lever by hand for some time solved it for me.

[scatron]

Thanks for all the replies.

Check to ensure you don't have exposure bracketing on.

That was the first setting I checked. I did that very thing years ago and it took me the better part of a week to figure it out. I now make sure the camera doesn't remember bracketing settings after it's powered off.

If not, I've had issues like this whenever I've had depleted batteries in a flash unit attached to the hot shoe. Other than that, I'm stumped.

No flash in this case.

Were these jpeg or RAW? If RAW, the software you are using to develop it may for some reason be making random choices about correct exposure. If you have another piece of software, e.g. DCU, check to see if it's the same there too.

Not RAW - jpegs right off the SD card.

Looks like the EXIF data is exactly the same exposure settings. If you are shooting in the fastest burst mode, perhaps the aperture of your lens is sticking and not closing down to the desired aperture fast enough between shots? Is it an older or newer lens?

It's older - a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 Di LD Macro. That's probably the issue. I'll have to check out the aperture lever.

Thanks again, everyone.

[mole]

Sure looks like sticky aperture to me too - have had similar results with an old A 70-210 at one time...

[Lowell Goudge]

I agree with sticky aperture, did the lever get bent a little. Perhaps rubbing on something?

[scatron]

I agree with sticky aperture, did the lever get bent a little. Perhaps rubbing on something?

Didn't appear so to me.

I flipped it back and forth and it seems to move freely. Still have some odd exposures when I'm firing away for awhile - like when a player is approaching a free kick in soccer.

[scatron]

I should have came back to report on this. I still remember this issue. I forgot exposure bracketing was activated and it didn't reset to normal operation when the camera was turned on and off. Had to dig in the menus to change the setting to NOT remember bracketing.