Canon 60D and 420ex Flash

When I use the 420ex flash with my 60D and snap a photo the flash goes off but its like the camera sends a signal to fire but my compensation setting acts as though the flash is not on there. Not a very good way to explain it. With my Canon 20D and the same flash its as though the camera new the flash was there and would tell me that I was going to over expose or under expose by the LCD screen on top.

Are you talking about the exposure meter during manual exposure (M mode), or what exactly is it you are referring to?

Yes the exposure meter shooting under the "M" manual. When I add the flash I have to take the first shot and see if I am over exposed or under exposed.

mdaddyrabbit wrote in post #14820456
Yes the exposure meter shooting under the "M" manual. When I add the flash I have to take the first shot and see if I am over exposed or under exposed.

Make sure the FLASH itself does not have EC dialed in, and that it is set to ETTL, not manual. Flash (on the flash) settings will over-ride camera settings every time.

The camera's exposure meter will measure what it can see, and that is of course ambient light, since before you've taken the picture the flash hasn't fired yet. That gives you the chance to set how you want the background exposed first. Then you add flash, which due to the limited range will illuminate mainly the foreground.
If both flash and ambient reaches the foreground, you have to underexpose both by one step, due to the simple math that two halves adds up to one.