DSC-HX60 - Dark Images

[kellygriffin]

Hello,

I have a Cyber-shot DSC-HX60, and all of my images come out very dark, no mater what the light conditions are. I have tried to figure out what the issue might be, and trouble shot using the manual, but nothing I try works. I am having to edit all of my images manually to ligten them. Does anyone have any idea how to solve this problem,

Thanks

[IamNic]

Hi @kellygriffin,

to be honest - I should have asked you to upload sample images in my first post.

I totally forgot, that the EXIF data stored in the images could help me identify the issue better then letting you take photos of your cameras display. 

What I could read from the EXIF data is the following:

Resolution:

The new Sony camera shoots images at 5 times the resolution. (Sony 20.16MPx - Canon 4.02MPx)

That means the light entering the lens gets read out by fewer sensor pixels on the Sony, which results in a lower light intensity for each individual sensor pixel.

Aperture:

The aperture on the Canon is opened a little bit more. (Canon F/2.8 - Sony F/3.5)

That means that more light enters the camera on the Canon, than on the Sony.

ISO:

The ISO on the Canon camera is set to four times as high as on the Sony camera. (Canon 400 - Sony 100)

That means the image on the Canon camera gets boosted four times more digitally than the image on the Sony camera.

Exposure time:

That one has me puzzled.

The Canon lists 1/800th of a second as exposure time, the Sony lists 1/30th of a second as exposure time.

Meaning the Sony camera exposes nearly 32 times as long as the Canon camera and still the images look darker?

Normally the at the listed settings the Canon would give you a darker image.

I made some test shots with the same settings on my a57 camera, just to illustrate what I mean (all settings match except the aperture, since I can't match it with the lens I use).

Canon equivalent:

Canon PowerShot G11 equivalentSony equivalent:

Sony DSC-HX60 equivalentI hope I didn't make any mistake while thinking about it, yet to me it doesn't make sense, why the DSC-HX60s image comes out much darker.

The effect of having a higher pixel count sensor wouldn't cause that much of a difference, neither would opening the aperture a little bit more.

The last thing which comes to mind are the lighting conditions.

If you use natural light (sunlight) which comes trough a window and the Canons image was shot in perfect conditions, while the Sonys image was shot during dawn or dusk, it could be the explanation.

For my sample images I used the same exact lighting settings on my two studio lights.

Maybe someone from the German community ( @ReneBeukert. or @r_a_n_i ) could take a look at this (I don't know who the photographers on the UK community are unfortunately).

I am more of a videographer and don't know that much about photography.

It would be overly embarassing, if something of the things I told you is wrong due to my lack of photography background knowledge.

- Nic

[kellygriffin]

Thanks for your help @IamNic ,

The photos were taken at different times so I understand that different natrual light can make a difference, but the dark images appear to happen at all times, even when images are taken on a bright and sunny day, I still have to edit. One thing I have noticed is that images taken with a black background don't seem to have this problem, but when taken on white they do? 

Otherwise I will just have to continue as I am, and have to spend the extra time editing the lighting afterwards.

Regards

Kelly

[IamNic]

Hi there @kellygriffin,

it could be, that the camera measures the average brightness of the whole sensor area, which causes image infront of a dark background to come out lighter than with the white background.

Sadly I don't know if your camera has this setting and how it is called in english.

You would need to set it to "center" or something similar to evaluate brightness only on the subject in the center of the frame.

- Nic