Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i bought a d50 last month and we took it on vacation to california and las vegas. it was working great and we loved it. well a few hours after we got to vegas we were taking pics indoors at the wax museum and the pics started coming out really dark. i triple checked the settings and the flash was working, but the pics looked like the flash wasnt going off. i probably took 5 hundred pics over the next few days trying to fix this, but no luck. outdoor and well lit pics are wonderful. i am going to send it off to nikon , but before i do any advice? anyone heard of this before?

thanks, Harlan
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scaledhabitats.com

Make sure the exposure compensation is not set to some negative value like -0.7, etc. You can check this by pressing the right-most botton behind the ON/OFF dial. The button has a plus/minus on it as in the picutre. Press it and see what number shows on the screen on top of the camera. If it is a negative value, rotate the command dial while pressing the plus/minus button until you get a zero for the number on the screen. In fact, I usually shoot with a plus 0.3 compensation.

Cheers,
WK

thank you for the reply. this setting was ok. i actually was setting it to over exposure later in the week trying to lighten them up. i think its just an internal problem. it is a nikon refurbished model. i got it for 400$, get what you pay for i guess. at least it is under warranty
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scaledhabitats.com

In order to diagnose what could be wrong, we need to see some of the photos you are having trouble with. Can you post one of the underexposed photos with the EXIF data still embedded? That way we can look at the camera settings and see where the problem might lie.

Are you sure you aren't shooting beyond the capabilities of the flash? The ability of a flash to light the subject is dependent on the subject distance and the f/stop used. If you are too far for a particular f/stop, the subject will be underexposed.

Try checking the subject to flash distance and compare it to the maximum power of the flash. Every flash has its limits.
You can derive that limit from the guide number of the flash. The GN for your popup flash is 15 feet at ISO 200.

Here's a table from Steve's Digicams that shows the range of the the D50 flash based on that GN -

So if you are shooting at f/8 at ISO 200, the flash is only good from 7 feet away. Any further and you will begin to see underexposure. Stop down to f/22 and you max flash distance is reduced to 2.4 feet.

If you are further away than this table indicates at the given ISO and f/stop, you will get underexposure.

If this isn't the problem, you could post a photo here with EXIF data (many jpgs still have exif data intact).

If we can't help, before I sent my camera in to Nikon, I would post your query on the D50 forum of DPreview.com. Search the forum first for flash underexposure to make sure it hasn't been posted 1000 times, then ask the question.
It will help them (or us) if you can post a picture with intact exif data that shows the problem.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

got my camera back from nikon. thanks for all the help. they replaced the metering (sensor?)it works great now
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scaledhabitats.com

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