Underexposed, grainy images with a light stripe running down the center

It sounds like the sepia tone is most likely caused by the tungsten lights in a regular room. Without flash, the only source of illumination indoors is artificial light (unless window light is dominant). There is a way to color balance the camera to approximate sunlight through the manual settings. Look in the menus for "white balance". You'll need to take the camera off of the fully automatic settings first. Move the cursor up or down while looking at the image and you will see the color shift. when you find a color balance you like for that particular room's lighting conditions, hit the OK to lock it in the activated position. Remember to go back to "auto" white balance for most shooting, especially outdoors, or everything will take on a wierd color cast.

Did You ever use a SLR back in the stone age when all we had was film?
Film was/is rated with a ISO number, the higher the number the faster the film.
Fast film had fewer and larger grains of silver iodide, (the particles that changed tone, color etc.when exposed to light), therefore it took less light to take a picture.

The down side was a increase in grain. Large grains meant that blow ups, 8x10, 11x14, posters, etc were not as sharp,
as with slow ( low ISO film)
Most outdoor photos had plenty of light so the film had more grains ( high ISO) to capture the available light, and the result was a much sharper image.

Portrait photography used very very slow film ( your 50 ISO setting) but in a studio you had all the artificial lighting you needed, so your portrait came out with very fine detail.

Now the FE-280 does not have a shutter setting, but we can compensate by changing the ISO setting, and the overall effect will be.
Fastest= 1600 ISO for very little light and poorest picture quality.
Slowest=50 ISO for plenty of light and the highest picture quality

200 ISO was the most popular because it worked well outdoors and indoors with a flash, with very good overall picture quality.

400 ISO was a good choice for gloomy days and medium lighting conditions.

Your ISO settings on the FE-280 will have a similar effect.
My best advice is to play around with the different settings until you develop a knack for it, we used to use light meters and a lot of guesswork, quite expensive when you had to buy film and pay for processing.

OK enough history. heres how....
Turn dial to (P) PROGRAMAUTO
Press (MENU)
The camera menu in center is bracketed, Press (OK)
Scroll down one bar on the on screen menu to (ISO)
Press (OK)
Scroll up or down to desired ISO
Press (OK)
TAH DA !

All other functions will be automatic or any other setting that you might choose..
If you change the dial and later go back again to (P) it will retain your selected ISO setting, which is displayed, on screen.

I hope I was help full, and you enjoy some of the special effects that you will now be able try.
By the way... good taste in cameras.
Best regards, Paul

Set camera:

Single shot mode not servo/C modes
Focus sensor set for center
Make sure exp. comp is not set on -(minus) side.
Make sure your subject is locked on and not moving out of the autofocus (center) sensor.

[email protected]

on the top dial position to p........ if neer a window during daylight dial to gide and select shooting into backlight then over to fill in flash.........also indoors and portrit with flash helps

Ok this is a crappy fix but it works for me.

If your flash isn't syncing correctly make sure your on auto flash. when your flash flips up and you get the beep push the piece that holds the flash just a little forward. and walla your flash syncs up.

If you set your meter based on the white (or substantially white) wall, as per the attachment, I would expect the image to be underexposed.

Whenever you are taking pictures of people within six feet of them, it is a good idea to turn on the flash - whether you are indoors or out. The Flash mode is easily accessed via the arrow pad on the back of the camera. Press the right arrow key, which has a lightning bolt icon, to enter the Flash Mode. Press the down key to select the lightning bolt icon and press “OK”. The flash will fire every time in this mode. Your outdoor pictures of people should improve in appearance since the flash will fill-in shadows normally apparent in outdoor shots.

Whenever you are taking pictures of people within six feet of you, it is a good idea to turn on the flash whether you are indoors or out. The Flash mode is easily accessed via the arrow pad on the back of the camera. Press the up arrow key, which has a lightning bolt icon, to enter the Flash Mode. Press the down key to select the lightning bolt icon and press “OK”. The flash will fire every time in this mode. Your outdoor pictures of people should improve in appearance since the flash will fill-in shadows normally apparent in outdoor shots.

Whenever you are taking pictures of people within six feet of them, it is a good idea to turn on the flash whether you are indoors or out. The Flash mode is easily accessed via the arrow pad on the back of the camera. Press the up arrow key, which has a lightening bolt icon, to enter the Flash Mode. Press the down key to select the lightning bolt icon and press “OK”. The flash will fire every time in this mode. Your outdoor pictures of people should improve in appearance since the flash will fill-in shadows normally apparent in outdoor shots.

When you are photographing scenes with mostly light objects (for example, snow, water, and sand), the picture is usually underexposed (darker than it really is). The camera meter registers the brightness of the scene and tries to set the camera lens and aperture for an exposure based on average brightness levels (18% reflectance) causing it to underexpose, as in the following picture. When you are photographing scenes with mostly dark objects (for example, shade, shadow, and overcast skies), and very few light objects, the camera may overexpose the image, causing it to be too light. If you have a flash on your camera, you can compensate by adding "fill flash" for some extra light. If your camera has an exposure compensation adjustment, you can increase or decrease the exposure to correct for these exposure problems. Increase the number to make the image lighter, and decrease the number to make the image darker. You may want to try a series of shots with different exposure compensation adjustments to get a feel for how much difference these adjustments make.