[ksmo7]

I am a new hand in digital photography. Last week I bought a A16 to be used with the D80 body. Took some indoor and outdoor photos. They look sharp, however many looked overexposed. I had to adjust the EV 2/3 step down for the colour to look good. With the kit lens, the photos look more 'normal', however I always feel that they are slightly overexposed and the colour don't look good. My notebook is not calibrated.

1. I went to Tamron repair centre with A16+D80. The guy was nice and friendly. He took a few pictures and agreed about the overexposure. Then he took out the lens and put it on his D90 and D700 (he didn't have D80). Took a few pictures and compared with me. He then concluded that it was the D80 that was overexposed, not the lens. He said it is a common D80 problem.

2. Then I went to Nikon repair centre. Again the guy was nice and friendly. He took the D80 body only (I didn't bring the kit lens) for inspection. After 10 minutes, he came out to say that the D80 is normal. (NORMAL again???) He lent me a zoom lens to test. I took a few photos which did not have obvious overexposure problem. Oh dear! I asked him to give a full inspection. He kept the body and the repair time is 2 weeks.

Do any CHing have similar problems? For problems like this, I don't know who to believe. To me, it is difficult to judge by looking at the photos through the LCD screen. I know they should have proper equipment for that. If the body turns out normal, will it be the lens problem, or that they are not compatible?

I plan to send my kit lens to Nikon for a complete inspection first.

Headache, headache....

[hahahaboy]

I am using Tamron A16 + Nikon D80 too
After half year, so far no problem.
Why don't you upload your photo? Let 's us to see how overexposed.

[ksmo7]

Thanks for reply. Over lunchtime I search the internet and found that many users reported D80 overexposure issue. For example,

"Yes, my D80 tends to overexpose some in bright, high contrast light situations. It exposes for the shadows. I just adjust the exposure compensation down about to -.07 if the light is extremely bright. If you google "D80 overexpose" you'll read a lot about it. For landscape shots, try center weighted metering. Also, when you use manual, meter on the brightest part of your image, so that you don't blow out the hightlights. It's a very nice camera, just has this little quirk.
Hope this helps!"

[hahahaboy]

IC
I search in google
some people have this answer
Tamron + Nikon may overexposed, turn EV ...
And some people said the 3Dmetering funation may make overexposure.
And then ....I always use center weighted metering

How about add the filter? UV or CPL

[ksmo7]

hahahaboy,

I already tried UV filter without success. My research on the topic also gives similar answers:
1. Tamron seefu says Nikon will not admit this fact. They will update the firmware secretly during the inspection. Afterwards, the problem is gone. Some customers told him so.
2. Turn EV 0.7 step down all the time
3. Use center weighted metering. It's the normal characterics of 3D metering.
4. Some people say it is a myth. D80 is perfect.

Also, Tamron seefu says Tamron lens are usually +0.3 step brighter than Nikon lens. That may be why I did not notice the problem with the Kit lens.

[maskli]

pls provide photo and all setting when you took the photos...
hard to find out what's the problem

[tam_dominic]

Compare the exposure histogram from the same focal length of the 2 lenses and you'll have the answer.

[ksmo7]

Thanks CHings. Nikon service called me up and said the camera was fixed. So I picked it up today. The repair detail of the body is "AE & AF and image adjusted." The kit lens has no problems.
Afterwards I took several casual outdoor pictures from both lens.

1. Exposure from the kit lens (18-135mm) look ok. I use ISO200 and trust the matrix metering to do the job.
http://cid-89769b0efad7784e.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Kit%20lens%20sample?nl=1&uc=7&isFromRichUpload=1

The colour is richer and less pale.

2. Exposure from Tamron lens is still overexposed to me. I use ISO200 with matrix metering.
http://cid-89769b0efad7784e.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Tamron%20samples?nl=1&uc=6&isFromRichUpload=1

Although the aperture and shutter speed are not given here, you can see the pictures from Tamron are generally whiter/paler.

I will upload another picture with the same scene, focus length later.

[ksmo7]

This example comes from the same scene with focal length 35mm, ISO 200 and matrix metering method.

http://cid-89769b0efad7784e.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Comparison

1. 030.jpg, 031.jpg, 032.jpg are taken from Tamron lens. For all instances, the camera use f/8 and 1/250 sec.

2. 033.jpg, 034.jpg, 035 are taken from kit lens. For all cases, the camera use f/8 and 1/250 sec.

You can see that the Tamron photos are relatively paler. Their difference looks like 2/3 steps. In all 6 cases, the camera use f/8 and 1/250sec. So can I say that the metering is consistent? Is it just the different 'presentation' of different lens? Tamron lens, to me, is more likely to get overexposed...???