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i have my camera set on tv mode with sunny day mode and use manual focus.i have been getting some dark pics mixed with good ones.i was then told to use auto focus and on the sports mode.what mode is the best?

Sun in the view finder has nothing to do with the metering setting that is selected for any given photo.

You need to understand that cameras with the Auto settings try to get the photos to meter to a given shade of Grey. If you shoot a photo of snow the entire seen will appear a bit dark since the camera judges the light coming in off the pure white and figures it needs to limit the amount of light being exposed on to the sensor/film. If you shoot a photo with a black surface its the opposite, the camera thinks that it needs to extend/open the exposure up more to get more light onto the object to make it closer to that shade of gray. You can do things like over/under stopping photos to assist with this if you know exactly what you are shooting but in situations where the object shifts a lot in exposure from one shot to the next you are not able to use this to assist.

The situation is that if you put the sun in the middle of the photo the camera sees it as a really bright light and in order to get that intense white light to be more on the darker/gray side it will either shoot really fast (1000 or higher) or close the aperture way down (f22) and the net result is the photo is really dark every where. Same thing happens if you shoot a cloud that is back lit and is really bright. The camera steps everything down to get the white in the cloud to be as close to its neutral gray as it can and that results in everything else being darker as well.

To confuse things even more you have to tell the camera where in the scene you want it to meter off of. You can have it meter off a small area, the entire scene or just off the center portion. Each of these have strengths and weaknesses so it pays to read the manual and to shoot lots of test shots on the ground to see the differences.

You are talking about light leaking around the edges of the shutter and adjusting the metering that way. I've never had it happen on shutter lengths that I've used jumping. For bulb length exposures? Yes.

You are talking about light leaking around the edges of the shutter and adjusting the metering that way. I've never had it happen on shutter lengths that I've used jumping. For bulb length exposures? Yes.

>Interesting I found out that using a mouthswitch causes the camera to lock up
>(have to take out the battery to get it working again). But if I use my external
>handswitch, no problem. I've never figured out why.

There are two contacts in the switch - focus and shutter. AFAIK you really want to close both to take a picture, but some blow/bite switches close only one. That may be the difference.