Well, one situation that I remember using it at -3 (the highest setting) is this: I was outside, there was a lot of snow everywhere, and I wanted to shoot this block of ice on the river. Early afternoon, so everything was really white, but I wanted the smaller aperture effect.. put the shutter at 1/2000 (my fastest setting), and f/22 (the smallest aperture on my lens), but the "needle" (it's actually a LCD in the viewfinder) was at its lowest and the minus sign was blinking. Turning down that dial was the only way I could get it in the middle (I was actually aiming for a little above the middle because it was snow and I read about light meters reading the world as gray on another website). And I always put it back to '0' after shooting a picture.. at least that's a good habit. :P Another thing I tried, was if I wanted the large aperture effect.. I'd put the aperture to f/4, try to find a good shutter speed (not too fast and not too slow, depending on what I wanted to shoot) and then use the compensation. Thanks, everyone, btw. :) And that black cat in a coal mine example will come in handy.. my youngest cat is totally black and he enjoys sleeping on black stuff (resulting in me sitting on him by accident more than once). Now I'll know how to take a pic of him without disturbing him. :P - darkpen