Nikon D5100 black image at higher shutter speed?

Yesterday i got myself a nikon d5100. When shooting in shutter priority mode at any shutter speed even at 1/250 i get a black dark image. If i turn the flash on the image gets clearer but what if i don't want to use a flash? Is this dark image normal?

Well if you're shooting indoors where the light is limited, this is quite common! In shutter priority your camera automatically selects the aperture, where the light is low (even if you can see, your camera may not), the camera simply runs out of available f/stops and will then underexpose. This is particularly the case when you are also manually controlling ISO.

In low light you need a long shutter speed and/or wide aperture and/or high ISO to get the correct exposure.

Adjust the aperture to max (f/3.5?) and ISO to max (3200?) and try again. In shutter priority mode you be be given some warning in the viewfinder that there isn't enough light - a flashing LED/symbol.

And that is probably normal.

When you use any of the non auto modes; manual, shutter, aperture, or program, the correct settings depend on the current lighting.

So you can't just willy-nilly use any setting you wish - the settings must be in range of the lighting.

If you are in shutter priority and set the shutter to 1/250 and you get a black image, then it is clearly an issue that you are using too high of a shutter speed for the available lighting and other settings on the camera. That you use a flash and get an improvement confirms this.

When you experience this, first check your metering on the camera. It should confirm that your exposure setting is too dark. Item 18 on page 5 of your manual is the exposure meter.

When you set the camera to shutter priority and set the speed, such as you did with 1/250, then the camera will attempt to change the aperture to obtain a proper exposure. However, the ability to do this is limited by the lens of your camera.

If you are using your kit lens (18-55mm) then other lenses that have larger apertures - such as a 50mm f/1.8, will perhaps expose your photo properly as it has more "range" that can be set.

Also, you can change the ISO setting. Each time you increase the ISO, it makes the sensor more sensitive to light. So there's likely a high ISO setting on your camera that will allow for a proper exposure at 1/250.

However, there's one caveat. Every setting on your camera has consequences. Increasing the ISO, at some point, will cause the photo to be noisy (little blotches of random color on the photo). Changing the aperture on the lens will affect the Depth-of-Field, and so on.

These are the many things that a photographer needs to know to properly use the manual modes.

But don't despair. All of us had to learn this, and making mistakes such as you are doing is just part of the learning process. It is better to try - make mistakes - and learn rather than keeping your camera in auto and using it as a dumb camera. But the good thing is with the digital format, it is a lot cheaper than when we ruined film when making mistakes.

Learn everything you can about the exposure triangle. That will give you insite as to what does what when learning exposure.

Here are a couple of websites that can help in that learning process:

http://www.adorama.com/.../AdoramaTV

http://www.althephoto.com/masthead/index.php

Best of luck to you.

Oh God. Not another poser with a DSLR who has absolutely no knowledge of basic photographic technique…

Your camera is working fine, you just have no idea how to use it.

You have to learn how to use your light meter.

Look on page s 70, 74 and 76 of your user manual

Here is how you can learn to balance your cameras ISO, shutter speed and lens aperture

http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/

Sounds normal to me since you don't have enough light (you will need to use flash - that's what it's there for).

Or lower your shutter speed (maybe you should use aperture-priority mode instead). But you might need a tripod