Why do my outside shots appear overexposed?

[Octoruss]

I live in Florida, where it's always bright and sunny. Sorry, not rubbing it in, we're lucky.

When I film outside, the camera's automatic setting usually seems to default to an overexposed state. I'll then click on the screen and try to find the area I want to set the exposure, but that doesn't seem to do much. Little increments, if any.

See this video as an example:

During the filming of the video it was on automatic, it was obviously overexposed, and I kept clicking on various parts of the screen to get the exposure right. But again, only minor adjustments seemed to result.

And I did not have the AE lock on. If I was able to get a good exposure I would have then set the AE lock.

Any suggestions?

 

[Multicoptertec]

I am here in sunny Florida also. Unless you are recording video of a scene that is not changing much, it's going to be difficult to maintain correct exposure manually. The scene is constantly changing, one minute you are pointed towards sunlight, other times shadows. Best to leave everything on auto, and do what you can in post processing. The system should do a fairly good job at maintaining the dynamic range. As far as setting exposure manually, if things are overexposed, click on a very bright area of the scene, if everything is too dark, click on a dark part of the scene. Also, there is a histogram function which will show you the extents of the dynamic range of the exposure. If everything is jammed up to the left, you are underexposed. To the right, overexposed. Take your bird outside, and without flying, get to know your camera settings without having to worry about flying. Hope that helped a little.

 

[cactusfrog]

Do a little googling on nd filters. But when shooting video the general rule is. You want your shutter at double your frame rate. So if filming at 25 fps, manually set your shutter to 50. This is where nd filters come in. In sunny conditions you will be crazy overexposed. So use different nd filters till you get the exposure you want. Hope that helps

 

[PJHoward]

I live in Florida, where it's always bright and sunny. Sorry, not rubbing it in, we're lucky.

When I film outside, the camera's automatic setting usually seems to default to an overexposed state. I'll then click on the screen and try to find the area I want to set the exposure, but that doesn't seem to do much. Little increments, if any.

See this video as an example:

During the filming of the video it was on automatic, it was obviously overexposed, and I kept clicking on various parts of the screen to get the exposure right. But again, only minor adjustments seemed to result.

And I did not have the AE lock on. If I was able to get a good exposure I would have then set the AE lock.

Any suggestions?

I live in Florida as well. You probably have the EV setting too high. try lowering it a step or two until you get the proper exposure level.
PJ

 

[Octoruss]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I was just surprised that on full automatic it would be so overexposed. But I guess I should learn not to rely on the automatic mode anyhow and try all your suggestions above. Thank you

 

[Sinisalo]

You can leave it on automatic but adjust the exposure level with the right thumb wheel. ND filters are a must, get a graduated ND filter if you can I use the rainbowers filters because you can use 2 or 3 different filters at the same time i.e. GR4 + ND16 and or Circular polarizer.