Something is wrong with my Fuji S6000fd

[Fardringle]

I don't have any idea what could have happened, but between the time I put my camera away on Friday afternoon and today when I took it out again, my camera is suddenly not exposing pictures properly.

The color balance in the photos is fine and there aren't any visible artifacts, but something is definitely wrong.

In bright lighting using f/2.8 aperture and ISO 100, my camera's Aperture Priority setting is saying that I need to use 1/2 second shutter speeds even with the flash activated. If it was just reporting a wrong number, I could deal with that using manual settings, but if I manually set what should be a more appropriate shutter speed (say 1/40-1/60) that worked last week, the resulting picture is very dark.

If I was using an SLR I'd assume that the camera's exposure setting was too low, but while this camera has an exposure bracketing mode (three shots at different exposures) there isn't a way to manually set the exposure level for individual shots that I'm aware of.

Any ideas what could be wrong and how I can fix it?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

What's the metering mode? Center weighted, matrix, etc?

Sounds more of a hardware issue to me though.

 

[Fardringle]

The metering options are Multi, Spot, and Average. The camera does the same thing with all three options.

 

[Fardringle]

I did some searching and I actually did find how to adjust the exposure manually. It was set to the center and even with it set all the way to maximum the pictures are still dark.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Fardringle
The metering options are Multi, Spot, and Average. The camera does the same thing with all three options.

Try to do a complete reset of the camera. Not too sure how to do this though. Take out the batteries and any back up batteries that it may have. Let it sit for a while and check to see if all the options have been reset. See if that helps.

 

[Fardringle]

I was thinking of doing that, but I was hoping to find another option first since I like having it show the shutter count (it's not required, I just like it) and I'm pretty sure resetting the camera will lose the count.

I guess having a shutter count doesn't matter much if the camera isn't working properly, so I'll go ahead and do it.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Fardringle
I was thinking of doing that, but I was hoping to find another option first since I like having it show the shutter count (it's not required, I just like it) and I'm pretty sure resetting the camera will lose the count.

I guess having a shutter count doesn't matter much if the camera isn't working properly, so I'll go ahead and do it.

lol, yeah....

 

[Fardringle]

I left the batteries out for 30 minutes and it did not reset the camera settings. I used the camera's internal Reset option and while it did reset a few of the settings (not all of them), it did not have any effect on the exposure problem.

 

[Fardringle]

OK, I feel really stupid and I give all of you permission to mock me thoroughly for posting while completely exhausted.

Once I started thinking (somewhat) rationally after a couple of hours of sleep, I realized that my camera is working just fine, but my brain wasn't.

There are two reasons the pictures are turning out dark on what were normal settings previously. First, I had the flash set on its absolute lowest setting while comparing low direct flash with higher power diffused/bounced flash last week and forgot to put it back so even with the flash firing I wasn't getting very much useful light. Second, and the reason I feel stupid, is because my sleep-deprived brain didn't take into account the fact that I'm not letting the camera do anything automatically any more and forcing it to stay at ISO 100 where it was often going to ISO 1600 or 3200 under indoor light conditions (which is far too grainy for my taste).

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Sooooo... PEBKAC?

 

[Fardringle]

Yep. Problem Exists Between Klutz And Camera.