I have the camera set on Av Mode, Gain on 0. I am trying to adjust the AE Shift to get a lighter pic but there is no gain or loss in the brightness of the image as I adjust the AE accordingly. I do see the onscreen indicators change illustrating the AE change but the outcome isn't cooperating. Why does it seem to not wanna participate?

Do you realy mean "AE shift" or "Gain shift". Gain shift will not change (at first view) your image. AE shift normally will, of course in automatic mode only.

I do mean AE shift....it seems to work sometimes like now but sometimes it doesn't work...like earlier today. This is wierd...is it dependent on certain circumstances? I couldn't get it to lighten or darken the image one bit about 2 hours ago...but now I can. This happens often, however, for some reason I think it is associated with what I am shooting instead of a defect but I do not know....any ideas as to what may be wrong or does it respond differently in different situations?

Ohh...the Auto Exposure seems to respond when I have the Gain set to auto...earlier I had the gain set to 0 and tried to adjust the AE.........

I cannot see what you could be doing wrong. The only other thing you might want to try is setting the exposure lock. When you are using manual gain modes, the cam's exposure lock is suppose to be enabled (which means the exposure lock is on, not off).

You might me at the limits of the exposure system. If your in a low light situation and the lens is already wide open (F1.6) the exposure can not create any more light, or open the lens any wider. If you up the gain (increase the CCD's sensitivity) the exposure will change and the exposure compensation will work (open up the aperture).

Jeff

So does the AE Shift work by opening the aperture more? It does seem that it doesn't work in lowlight. So if it works by opening the aperture, does this means there should be no noise added by increasing the AE Shif?

The details for the operation of AE Shift are on page 46 of the manual. It only works in Auto (not green box), Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority. In AP it adjust the shutter and vice versa in SP. I'm not sure in Auto, but I suspect it adjusts the aperture.

Jeff