Just took some new pics and I'll almost certainly be returning the camera. Word of caution, everyone's monitor is set differently, so what I see may not be exactly what you see. Today, beautiful, bright morning,
pale blue sky, not a cloud in it.
First pic, on Auto...camera does all the work, can't change anything, Eric, metering mode is on multi. In this picture, the sky is way too dark as is the shaded side of the tower which is a lot lighter in "real life"
Zoomed to tower, again, way too dark
Now on manual, 100 ISO. Here, the tower lighting is exactly as you see it. The lit face is too light. The sky is correct, maybe a little saturated, but that's fine.
Testing 200 ISO just to see if it's working, it is.
here's something odd, all set on Auto, this bush, the grass and the pavement are all correct, pretty much exactly as you see them.
My last camera a Panasonic Lumix LX3 never took pics like the Auto's above. Was a great camera but it's not made anymore unfortunately and I couldn't find a used one fast enough, so researched and went with the Sony. Here's the real kicker. It's the second Sony. The first one I got last week took the exact same dark pics so I exchanged it for this one. Just not meant to be I guess.