kM EV compensation in manual setting.

I have just bought set of studio lights and have been taking first set of trial portarits. I will post later when I have got more feedback on this kit. But for now I am doing nothing too elaborate, just a single light with softbox.
Problem is with camera it is a Pentax kM (which I love) but when setting up I chose 125thsec at F11 - so nothing unusual I guess. However display shows EV at -3.0. It only shows this on manual but it can't be right can it?
I've looked through the manual and tried to find similar on forum but no luck - any ideas anyone?

If you set the camera to manual the display gives you a meter reading. The idea is to adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture to centre the readout.

If your studio lights are flash then the camera is simply giving you a reading of the ambient light, which is clearly too dark for the values set. When the flash goes off, for an instant there will be plenty of light. The shutter speed you have set is OK, so just adjust the aperture until you have the correct exposure. Forget the readout for this purpose.

---

Best regards, John

Thanks John,

That's a great relief I was beinning to think I was going senile. Everything is as you say and exposures were relatively good at specified settings. These were guauged using an old flash meter and comparing histograms. Just seeing that -3.0 was giving me a headache. I will carry on testing and post again when I think I've got some decent pics.