Some questions about my F80

[AlmightyWa]

Hello all, I have a slight confession.

I have had my F80 for six months now, and while I've grasped a lot of this camera's fucntions, there are still four (yes, four!) buttons that I don't get. Can anyone help?

Exposure Compensation Buttons
So, I get the idea about dialling in say, a stop, to compensate for particularly bright or dark areas in the photo, but why do I need a button to do this? Why not just alter the setting manually so that it exposes one step higher or one step lower. And what is the difference between the plain old exposure compensation buttons and the flash compensation button?

Bracketing
Again, I get bracketing, you expose x stops either side of your chosen exposure so that you are bound to get the correct shot. However, I don't understand how my bracketing button works. Again, why wouldn't I just alter the settings and re-take the picture? Also, when I set it up how I think I want it and press the button, I expect it to take a number of frames (hence bracketing) but it just takes one

I am confused, and probably quite dumb.

Thanks for any help!

 

[ksmattfish]

Exposure compensation is for when you are using an auto or semi-auto mode. You are correct that you could just use full manual, and adjust the settings accordingly.

With bracketing it is sort of the same. You can do it manually, but some folks just don't have the time, and if they are bracketing every shot, they just want the camera to do it. I'm not sure of the specifics of operation with your camera, but you probably still have to actuate the shutter 3 times, and if it's in an auto or semi-auto mode it will under expose one of the shots, and over expose one of the shots. If your camera has custom functions you may even be able pick the order of the shots: under/even/over, even/under/over, even/over/under, etc...