D200 Meter Inconsistent

[ranydl]

Hello Everyone,

After using a D80 for 3 years and then a D90 for 2 years, I decided to pick up a D200 to utilize my old Ai lenses in A mode. I found a mint condition one with 9000 shutter actuations for a good price. Everything checked out well through the standard testing, and used it several times in bright daylight with no problems. ( A mode, Manual focus, auto exposure, 2 different lenses.) This week I went out on an overcast day and my exposures were all dark with another lens. Both the appearance (review) and the histogram showed the underexposure. I made the correction with the compensation button and finished the shoot.
The next day I started experimenting and found that with 5 different lenses, all have different exposure errors shooting the same target scene with the same camera settings. The lenses must be corrected with +.4 (two lenses), +.5, +.7 and +1.0.
As a temporary fix, I have set up the A through D custom banks to the compensation values for each lens. I have to have the shooting banks A>D set for non-CPU lens info. set anyway, so this is no big deal. I also found an error with a D lens and a ED-IF of about +.5.
My conclusion is that my meter must be defective in some way, although this is unusual to my experience to have this inconsistency between lenses.

[pnodrog]

Do the correction's in anyway relate to the maximum size aperture for each lens?

[ranydl]

Thanks for the reply pnodrog,
I did some further testing as you suggested. The fixed focal length Ai-s and E that I was testing, (28mm & 50MM) both held the same +.7 correction across the entire aperture range. The fixed 90mm D lens kept its correction at +.3 across the aperture range as did a 75mm - 300mm D lens. It looks like the main culprit is my 18-70mm AF-S lens. It needs correction of +1.0 at f22, (18mm or 70mm), correction of .3 at f3.5 and 18mm, correction of 0.0 at f4.5 and 50mm or f8 and 28mm.
Still wondering why the meter cannot make up the variables. My D-90 seems to compensate for whatever I put in front of it. I haven't checked it to this extent, but never noticed a problem with the same lens on the D-80 I had or the D-90.

[tclune]

This is purely a guess, but might the battery of the D200 be old and unable to hold a full charge?

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi Tom,

Please post some pix with your corrections. very interested . D200 user too.

Thanks

[ranydl]

I have a new battery and an older one. Tried both....same deal. I will post some images. Maybe tomorrow.
Thanks.

[ranydl]

OK Guys, Looks like I found the problem. This camera had 2.0 firmware on it, and supposedly there was no exposure or meter changes in 2.01, but in view of how inconsistent the meter acted, I thought the file may have been corrupted somehow. So I uploaded 2.01 and now just in this room (dark out) and with incandescent light, I get nearly the same exposure with 4 lenses using f22 and the most open aperture on each one using no compensation. So now, if your camera is doing weird stuff, reload the firmware. We have always done this with computers...right?

Thanks for the help..

[ranydl]

I went out this morning with an overcast sky (like the day I noticed the exposure problem) and did some test shots with 2 lenses that gave me the most problem that day. Near perfect histograms across the board. It definitely was a firmware problem. Probably why the guy sold it with such a low shutter count? My gain!

Cheers everyone,
Rany