Nikon 5100 producing dark pictures

KR10

I have the 5100 and recently the camera started producing dark pictures even when using the flash. It appears the flash isn't on in the pictures, they turn out very dark. Has anyone else experienced this. I'm an amateur by all means and have had a professional look at my camera and they tell me it's just the quality of the camera. However previously the camera took pictures just fine. So I find that a little hard to believe. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Nikoniser

Try taking a photo in a mirror, you should be able to see if the flash is firing. The onboard flash can quickly run out of power if the aperture/shutter/iso are set too low.

You might have your aperture set to f8 or lower.

You might have switched to manual ISO and have it set at 100

You might have the shutter at the max sync speed ( 1/200 )

You might have the flash set to manual mode ( something like 1/64 ) instead of TTL

Try setting the camera to full auto mode, and checking the shutter/aperture/iso settings when you take a pic.

Also there are flash compensation ( not sure about the D5100 for this setting ) and exposure compensation settings that might result in dark pics, check those as well.

spraynpray

Your 'professional' friend may be a professional something, but it doesn't seem it is anything to do with photography. No correctly functioning and correctly set camera will give dark images, irrespective of whether it is an entry level or pro body. A starting point would be to do a two-button reset on it to remove any wrong user settings, then set it to auto mode and take some pictures. If the pictures are still dark, it may not be functioning correctly so take it back to the shop you bought it or send to a Nikon service centre to check over.