My d50 and friend's d70 don't gel...

[atlfilmguy]

I was on a film set doing some still pics with my d50, the DP ,a friend of mine, was using his d70 to grab pretty much the same stuff. We put our pics onto the producer's Powerbook later that day. Mine all looked ok, but next to the Dp's they looked overexposed about 1/2 stop.

So we went out side and set the cameras up with same everything, same mm lens, same f-stop, same ISO, same shutter, no ev comp, .......STILL mine look brighter by one half stop. The only way to get mine to look like his was to ev comp mine by -1/3 stop. Then mine started to look like his.

Is this a known thing or is my CCD screwed?
Is my firmware messed up?

I always thought these cams had the same guts.

NOW his lens is ED and mine is not, could that be it? Seems that his would rob less light than mine.

Thanks.

[MattinSTL]

It's a known issue. Adjust your EV accordingly.

Believe it or not there were a lot of people who argued the other way... annoyed that without pushing their exposures, the D70 and D70s created darker images... but the D50 is tuned to give photos more "pop" so that your pictures will tend to be brighter and more colorful even if you never use photoshop.

The D70 and D70s are tuned to protect the highlights at all costs... ensuring the most neutral gray... which gives you the most processing options in post... but often times this leaves untouched photos appearing dull when compared directly to the D50.

Either cam can be adjusted to shoot like the other however, but I have really grown to love the conservative nature of the D70s... and if I had a D50 or D80 I'd set it up the same way. When a truly great picture is so rare... why not put yourself in a position to perfect it in photoshop rather then have blown highlights just so all the other ho-hum shots came out brighter? I'd cut the EV by 1/3 to 1/2 stop and keep it there.

[atlfilmguy]

Thanks alot for the response. I feel better.