My Rebel EOS is getting confused or am I?

[slimla]

Rebel Eos original silver body digital. with f/1.8 50mm lense and set on Manual using onboard flash with a plastic difuser I made from a plastic milk jug. Shooting headshots and want as much aperture in the background as possible so I set at 2.0 ap.


PROBLEM:
When I set the camera with onboard flash up and then i press the the * so the camera will flash so i can read the reading to make sure it is at 0 (-2..-1..0..+1..+2) but when i shoot the picture is too brite washed out. So i have start to guess for the exposure setting it between -2 and -1. Any solution ideas here or am I doing this incorrectly?

[xoldboy]

whats your shutter speed and iso? try increasing the shutter speed and put the iso to like 400. give that a shot and let me know if it works or not.

[asysin2leads]

Rebel Eos original silver body digital. with f/1.8 50mm lense and set on Manual using onboard flash with a plastic difuser I made from a plastic milk jug. Shooting headshots and want as much aperture in the background as possible so I set at 2.0 ap.


Not really sure what you mean by, "want as much aperture in the background as possible." If you're shooting headshots at f/2, you're going to lose definition in the back of the subject. I usually shoot headshots at f/5.6 - f/8. Besides, at f/8 the 50 1.8 really perks up and is very sharp. DOF is relative to your distance to the subject and the subject from the background. I usually have the subject ~6'+ from the background. That permits plenty of separation of the subject from the background

Also, if you're shooting w/ iso of 800+, it's going to be very bright. Stick to around iso 200 and see where that gets you. Also, post some of the results you're getting so we can see.

[BradM]

Your question does leave a bit to wonder about but usually if you are using the FEL (*) to confirm the lighting usually the exposure will be very close to correct but if the shot is coming out over-exposed then I would make sure you don't have a positive setting in the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC). Easy to overlook a previous setting change.