Nikon D300S, adjusting camera settings

[Labbegutt]

I have sold my Canon 40D and Canon 17-55 f2,8 and will very soon pick up my Nikon D300s and Nikon 16-85. When I took some testshots in the shop with a simular camera, I noticed that the pictures needed some more saturation, but they were also a little bit overexposed. Is there another way of adjusting the exposore than setting the exposure to - 1.

I have been told to set the saturation to vivid, but what about the exposure. Can somebody on this great forum give me some advice.

[JimC]

I'd start off with camera defaults as a first step, until you become more accustomed to it's behavior.

As for overexposed images, I would not expect them to be consistently overexposed in most lighting conditions. Are you sure you're not doing something like using Spot Metering with a darker subject?

I'd start with Matrix Metering for starters until you become familiar with the camera's metering behavior in more conditions (and note that matrix usually weights the selected focus points more, although it's still going to take the rest of the scene into consideration). Or, switch to Center Weighted if you want more consistent behavior with a bit of + or - EV compensation set, depending on lighting and subject type/color. I'd suggest you don't use spot metering, unless you're very careful of what you're metering on and understand how it will impact the image's exposure.