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I use Nikon D7100, mostly on Aperture priority mode. I do basic image editing on Google photo. I find that most of my photographs need additional light even though they were not necessarily taken indoors or night time. I want to avoid using external or pop up flash routinely. I wonder if there are any adjustments I need to make in my camera setting to avoid this problem. Will appreciate any suggestions.

Urodoc45
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  • Can you describe a little better the situation when you are not indoors or at nighttime? Some examples might help. – mattdm Aug 20 '16 at 05:57
  • I feel like there is an interesting good question in here somewhere, but as writen, it's too broad. Arguably 95% of photography is "getting adequate light" in some sense or another. – mattdm Aug 20 '16 at 13:28
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    What do you mean by "need additional light"? Are they dark? Or blurry? Do they have dark shadows? Please specify. – MirekE Aug 20 '16 at 15:07
  • Thank you. I am new to this forum and came across accidentally. But I am glad I did. Very Informative. – Urodoc45 Aug 21 '16 at 11:09
  • Thank you @mattdm. I am new to this forum and came across accidentally. But I am glad I did. Very Informative. As I mentioned in my post, I edit the images (basic) on Google Photo. I have not ventured into RAW and Photoshop yet :-( In Google Photo Auto edit, there are 4 sliders, Light, Color, Pop and Vignette. That is where I encounter the issue of needing extra light.Images are NOT dark or blurry as mentioned by@MirekE. Often times I ignore the suggestion or adjust the slider to my liking. Thank you. – Urodoc45 Aug 21 '16 at 11:27
  • It's natural for people to assume you mean dark or blurry when you say that you need extra light. Since you say that you mean something else, I think you'll need to spell it out for us. Do you just mean that when you press "auto", the "Light" slider jumps up considerably — even when you don't think it's necessary? An example photo would really help here. – mattdm Aug 21 '16 at 12:33
  • Thank you @mattdm. You are correct that the light slider jumps up. The edited image most often looks more sharp. Often times I adjust the light slider to the slightly to decrease the light intensity. I often add a bit of Vignetting. May be I am unnecessarily concerned. Ultimately however, I will have to use Photoshop or Pixlr, which is supposed to be easier to use in Google environment. Thx. – Urodoc45 Aug 23 '16 at 00:53

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I wonder if there are any adjustments I need to make in my camera setting to avoid this problem.

It sounds like you might have the exposure compensation set to underexpose the image.

If you're shooting in aperture priority mode, the camera will adjust shutter speed to give a medium exposure. So, one possibility is that you've got the meter set to spot mode, where the camera only looks at a very small part of the image. If you happen to be metering off a bright part of the image, the camera will adjust the shutter speed to compensate for that brightness, and that will cause the rest of the image to be underexposed. But it seems unlikely that you'd point the meter at a bright part of the scene in every image, so exposure compensation is a more likely culprit. The exposure compensation setting lets you control the camera's target exposure level. It's how you tell the camera "I want to make the image darker (or brighter) than the typical medium exposure."

On the D7100, the exposure compensation button is the one marked +/- and located near the shutter release button.

One more thing: Don't judge the exposure by how the image looks on the camera's display. The problem could be as simple as having the display's brightness turned down. Use the histogram display to get a better sense of the true exposure, or import the images to your computer and look at the images there.

Caleb
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    Just a note: sometimes is just the camera. My Pentax K50 in certain conditions (strong lights in the area, or a very bright sky) tend to underexpose a lot when set in multi-metering or in center-weighted, so I got used to go around with the exposure compensation always set at +1 to have a less underexposed image. I think it has to do with the camera algorithms: this one seems to always want to avoid having some part of the image overexposed. (that make sense if you think that underexposed parts are easier to recover) – motoDrizzt Aug 20 '16 at 09:37
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    And not necessarily because the camera is wrong! Interpretation of "correct exposure" is subjective, and you may just have a different opinion from the designers of the camera's auto-exposure program. – mattdm Aug 20 '16 at 17:12
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    Thank you @Caleb you may have solved my problem. I checked my camera setting and i do not have the exposure compensation set in +/-. I do set my metering to spot or center-weighted, 8 mm.This may have been the problem as diagnosed by you. I will change the metering to Matrix unless I need for close up/portrait etc. Will experiment and see if problem persist. – Urodoc45 Aug 21 '16 at 21:28