I'm not surprised your exposure meter is telling you that your exposure is very high... if you are outside during the daytime and using those settings, then it's because it actually is very high.
When you are using 'manual' mode the metering doesn't control the exposure. The light meter is only reporting information to you... in other words it is offering you "advice" which you can choose to take or ignore. But the meter will not change the camera settings when you are in "manual" mode... it uses the settings YOU dial in.
I'm wondering why you chose 1/50th, f/2.8, and ISO 160.
That would produce an extremely over-exposed shot if you are outside in daytime.
In full mid-day sun, at f/16, the shutter speed can be set to the inverse of the ISO setting. This is called the "Sunny 16 Rule". It was a guideline developed back in the days before cameras had light meters as a way to help photographers remember common exposure settings without having to meter the light.
So at ISO 100 you can use a shutter speed of 1/100th. But the rule goes on to say that in light overcast (this is when you have thin clouds... but you can still see objects casting a shadow) you lose 1 stop of light (half the light) and can make up for this by increasing the exposure time (e.g. switch to 1/50th) -or- by increasing the ISO (e.g. ISO 200 instead of ISO 100) -or- by opening the lens aperture by 1 full stop (e.g. switch to f/11 instead of f/16).
In moderate overcast you lose 2 stops. Moderate overcast is when things no longer cast a shadow... but it does not yet look so dark that it seems as though it's about to storm.
In heavy overcast you lose 3 stops (when the clouds are getting fairly dark.)
But even in heavy overcast at ISO 100, three stops down from f/16 is f/5.6. If speed the shutter up to 1/200th then you can get down to f/4. If you speed the shutter up to 1/400th then you can get down to f/2.8. (and this is with "heavy" overcast).
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
