Over the last weekend I was taking snapshots at a local festival. Instead of chimping, I was occasionally checking to make sure I got my shot. Some photos were coming out under exposed and some were severely over exposed. I was nearly in a panic, thinking that either my camera's batteries were dead or dying, or worse, that the metering system on the camera was broken.
I continued to shoot pictures, and I also continued to fuss and fume over the poor exposures. I took several shots of each pose to make sure that I got at least one in the ballpark. I was disgusted with my camera. I put it in its bag and left it there.
The next day, I pulled the camera out of its well deserved hidy-hole and started looking for possible signs and symptoms. I checked the mode setting, I checked the battery meter, I checked the neutral density filter, and I checked the mechanical aperture on the lens -- nothing. Finally I looked through the view finder and noticed that the exposure compensation setting was two stops higher than normal -- I never do that! Then, it dawned on me. I had recently been shooting exposure bracketed HDR, and I had forgotten to turn that mode off. Since I was shooting single images, instead of a rapid-fire sequence, my shots were under exposed, metered, and over exposed.
The moral of this tip is to always check your camera settings. You never know who might have set up something screwy in a previous shoot.
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