PEF's and exposure bracketing?

Hi John, could be my early morning fuzzy head but that sounds exactly the same to me.
I left out aperture from my little example as that would alter the DOF and how the image may look.
If I set my shutter speed, my iso, and f stop,
There's no point in using exp compensation, as it would be easier and quicker for me to alter any one of them rather than adjusting the exp comp ?
As I said. While shooting in manual,
Why not adjust myself rather than let the camera choose which to adjust.
???

You would use exposure compensation when in, say, Av mode. You wouldn't use it in manual mode because you simply change the setting yourself directly. The camera can make an adjustment in the auto modes, depending on which mode and which values are fixed.

Exposure compensation can be very useful in auto to make adjustments for particular subjects, for example to keep very dark subjects from being reproduced too light.

Cheers John,
I did ask in my question about when shooting manual,
It's as I thought.
I completely understand that if shooting in other modes that exp compensation would be hugely helpful.
Before I got my first k5, i had one of the canikon variants. It was never off auto
When I switched to k5 I learnt how and why to shoot in manual.
Never budged since, except when in bulb mode

My old k10D did not have EC available in manual mode. This sounds perfectly logical to me. With the K1 you can use EC in Manual. It has the effect of altering the centre of the exposure meter so you still have direct control of the three exposure parameters. I don't use it.

And someone even told me over at PentaxForums that in M camera mode with a flash on in P-TTL mode, that the EC control on the camera adjusts the flash exposure! Apparently.

There's loads of little tricks and tips about our cameras now, many of which those used to much older equipment will never need to explore. They're all different ways to achieve the same things.

Going back to the original question specifically ..... Even for RAW capture we should aim for the optimal exposure on the camera. Adjusting exposure later on the computer will still be a compromise in IQ terms, even in RAW.

Pentax don't aim for optimum exposure in the camera..... so what's good for the goose is good for the ganderers

If you have Highlight correction turned on the camera underexposes by usually one stop and then pulls it back up if the highlights will stand it. That's why with it turned on the minimum ISO changes from 100 to 200.

I don't like HDR but single shot HDR can be quite good. I assume the software creates the +/- shots from the original.

--

I suppose the camera maker wants to play safe, and it has long been said that Pentax DSLRs are programmed to slightly underexpose in order to protect highlights, certainly from the K5 onwards. In response to this Pentax shooters have long been told they can underexpose for safety and raise the shadows in processing later.

I think this is still a compromise but a valid one when necessary and more complex options are not available. But it should not be the recipe for every scenario and image. As the photographer we should take control over all our image captures and aim to get them as right as possible in exposure terms.