Nikon Coolpix 5700 severe underexposure problems when using flash

Hi, All!

I bought a new Nikon 5700 in late July to replace my older
Fuji 4900. I bought the 5700 to replace the Fuji expecting

sharper images with less noise, which it does do well. I
didn't have the budget for a DSLR and lenses. I chose Nikon
on the advice from friends who are serious amateur and pro
photographers with digitals who knew my requirements for
price, mega pixels, etc.

The 5700 produces excellent results outdoors with bright or
cloudy light, but flash performance is quite variable and

often poor. Examples of the poor pictures I got are posted
to alt.binaries.photos

I collect automobile pictures for a hobby, both digital
camera and scans. Much of the time, I am outdoors at cars

shows and city streets taking pictures some people call
"street shooting", but I also frequent large museums such as

the Henry Ford Museum and the Walter P. Chrysler Museum,
both in Michigan.

Because I want to shoot car pictures in museum settings, I
need more range than is provided by the 5700's built-in

Speedlight, so I bought a Vivitar 728 external flash with a
guide number of 92 at ISO 100.

The Vivitar 728 is an ordinary "dumb" electronic flash in
that it has *no* set-uo or zoom or any options. It's only

purpose is to pour a lot of light onto the subject. I
verified at the camera store where I bought it that it could

synch up with my 5700's hot shoe and fire either by itself
or with Nikon's Speedlight, depending on how I have it

set-up.

About 1/3 of the time, my flash pictures with either the
Vivitar or Nikon Speedlight are quite good. Another 1/3 are

underexposed by maybe 2 f/stops but are easily fixable in my
favorite editor, Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 9. The remainder

are 4-6 f/stops under and look like the proverbial black cat
in a coal bin.

Virtually all camera set-up functions are factory-standard,
so there is little chance I have messed up the operation

of the camera's auto exposure electronics or any other
pertinent parameter. You can see some of this in the EXIF
data

of my attached example pictures. If you would like me to
list key components of my set-up, please advise which ones

you want to verify.

I requested help from Nikon's Tech Support. After asking the
obligatory newbie questions, they basically have said

"that's the way it works". Of course, they won't even talk
about my Vivitar because I wouldn't pop the $280 for a

Nikon external flash.

I've also sent about 20 example images straight from the
camera to (E-Mail Removed). Again, I got stonewalled on

the Vivitar and lots of dumb questions. It is not nearly
resolved yet, and I haven't heard from Nikon since my last

E-mail to them last Friday night.

As to the Vivitar, their only recommendation was to shoot in
full manual mode using the 92 guide number.

The other suggestion was the vary the Speedlight control
called Variable Power. You will see from the pictues I've

posted to a binary group that I've tried the max VP value
with contiuing poor results.

My previous digital, a FujiFilm 4900 from early 2001,
manages pretty well in museum environments even though I
only

used its built-in pop-up flash unit. Ditto for my wife's
little $150 Kodak 6330. Neither produce "good" results, but

exposures are OK and very consistant.

The "bad" images I take with either the Nikon Speedlight or
the Vivitar are underexposed by 4-6 or more f/stops. They

*can* be fixed in PSP 9, but with much higher edit times
than well-exposed images, plus, digital noise is problematic

from the increased amplification of the 5700's electronics
trying to retain detail in the image. The noise is often

impossible to correct without destroying the sharpness and
detail of my car pictures.

Here is what I've done so far to relieve my problem:

Read the 5700 manual thoroughly, several times. Read the
Vivitar external flash manual thoroughly, several times.

Called Nikon Tech Support on 1-800-645-6689 twice. Contacted
Vivitar Tech Support - they said "our flash has no

options - talk to Nikon, it is their problem". Experimented
extensively with various settings on my camera (putting

them back to "default" when I was done so as not to create a
problem through user error). And, consulted with digital

photographer experts who are Cyber friends of mine on PSP's
user forums. Nothing has helped so far.

As best I've been able to tell from reading the manual and
talking to Nikon Tech Support, metering when using either

the built-in Speedlight or an external flash of any brand
besides Nikon is controlled exclusively by the light sensor

on top of the flip-up speed light. To confirm this, I tested
changing my auto exposure mode from Matrix to Spot

without improvement.

The Nikon Tech Support reps I talked to, although well-
trained, patient, and thorough, could not explain to me

exactly how the 5700 determines exposure when using flash of
any kind, and suggested I include that in my E-mail to

you.

At the suggestion of Nikon Tech Support, I have also
experimented at the WPC Museum by changing both exposure

compensation (the +/- button next to the shutter release)
and varying the Variable Power setting of the Speed light

in Set-up. When pictures are properly exposed, they are
definitely brighter with Variable Power set to 1 or 2, but

that did *not* improve the severe underexposure I've seen in
so many of my pictures. Ditto for exposure compensation.

I thought I might have figured out what was causing my flash
exposure underexposure inconsistency by noting the it

often occurres with dark subjects and/or when there was
something in the field-of-view that was very light colored

and would reflect a large amount of flash light to the
Speedlight sensor. But I have confirmed that this is *not*

always the case.

I've posted a 9 of example JPEGs straight from the camera
that exhibit the problems I'm describing to

alt.binaries.photos with the sugject line Nikon problem #x,
and a description of the particular image.

Hopefully with my explanation and these example pictures,
you may be able to diagnose my problem and recommend a

change in my procedures to get more reliable results.

I did not post the "good" and "almost good" pictures but the
subject distances and ambient lighting is equivalent to

the "problem" pictures. If it would help anyone reading this
post, I can easily post additional pics to

alt.binaries.photos.

In conclusion, I can neither prove nor disprove that I have
a technical problem with my 5700. Nothing that Nikon Tech

Support has said so far suggests that it is broken. So far,
Nikon is still hung up on some sort of user error, which

is entirely possible. IMHO, if the 5700 flash system were
broke, I'd get bad results all the time, not the

variability I'm seeing.

I would appreciate anyone's advice as to 1) what I might be
doing wrong, and 2) what I might do to correct it.

Thank you in advance for any help.

--
Jerry Rivers

P.S. I am not cross-posting to mutliple NGs, but did post an
identical plea for help to one other "camera" NG


All Things Mopar