Overexposure photos washed out

kf4cop

In bright daylight all my photos are washed out and too bright. I tried all sorts of settings that did not help. I think my camera might be broken? Help!

bruto

It would help if you can find one of the culprit photographs and get a computer program (or enable the full playback display on the camera) to read the EXIF information on the picture. Every picture that this camera takes will have attached to it a file with information on shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, ISO, etc., and this will help a great deal in telling what is going on.

Make sure you have not accidentally enabled a very high ISO.

One of the possibilities is that the lens is not stopping down properly when you shoot. When using the viewfinder mode, the lens always remains wide open for viewing and stops down to the set value only when you push the shutter button. However, live view works a bit differently, and you can make a quick test here.

In an averagely lit, not very bright room, with camera in viewfinder mode and aperture priority, set your aperture at its widest (f/4 for the kit lens), aim the camera and push the shutter halfway down. Now, without changing anything else, switch to Live View. The image you see in the screen should be nice and bright.

Now, switch back to viewfinder view, and change the aperture to a very small aperture, f/25 or so. You'll notice that the viewfinder view remains the same. Now switch to Live View. If the lens is behaving correctly, the image on the screen should be very dim. If it is as bright as it was before, your lens is not behaving.