EOS Rebel T3i dark in manual mode

[Trissw09]

Hello,

I have a Canon T3i Rebel and for some reason, my photos are dark when I am in this mode. I have tried everything possible feature to try to make the photos brighter, but nothing works. I even tried the flash and it only added a bit of lighting. The strange thing is that this mode worked perfectly before, but for some reason it doesn’t work now. I really hope this camera is not broken. 
thank you!

[deebatman316]

Are you expecting the brightness of the viewfinder to change. It’s not going to change on a DSLR. The exposure scale on the bottom of the viewfinder should be used to obtain the correct exposure. The needle should lineup to the 0 or center of the scale. Is the ISO set to Auto or did you manually set a value. 

[LeeP]

Are you using the readout in the center of the black space at the bottom of the frame? So let's say you set an aperture of f5.6 to start out with an shutter speed of 1/125. The readout will tell you if you are over or underexposed for the brightness of the scene. You would then adjust one or the other to "center" to the down-pointing arrow on the array. Manual doesn't mean you just set something and the camera works magic around those settings.

[deebatman316 · Accepted solution]

I’m thinking the same thing too. How is the OP getting these settings. I don’t think they fully understand how to use manual mode. My mom still owns her EOS Rebel XSi and I believe the max shutter speed was 1/2000th but my EOS 40D was 1/8000th. The flash definitely isn’t powerful enough for those settings.

[Trissw09]

I have figured this out, you guys were right about the aperture and exposure and everything. Thank you very much for the time you have dedicated to this issue! Thank you all!

[LeeP · Accepted solution]

Perfection.

I'm genuinely glad that you're now ready to dive into manual.

That's the beauty of this forum, you can ask a question and even if it is imprecise, the experts (not calling myself that) will help you.

Thank you for letting us help you.

[Trissw09]

yesss! thanks!