ideal exposure compensation

[idealone05]

I wanted to know what's the exact exposure compensation tht we need to hve. i had -2/3 exposure compensation i think. i use canon A520 Digital camera.
Do we need to have different exposure compensation for indoor as well outdoor shots.:?

[tclune]

In general, you should have 0 exposure compensation, assuming your camera is working properly. The point of exposure compensation is that "proper exposure" has a component that is determined by content. For any given exposure algorithm (and most cameras support multiple approaches), the exposure will be wrong for some particular composition you desire.

Imagine, for example, that your exposure algorithm samples the entire field of view, and sets the exposure accordingly. Now, imagine that you have a feature off to the side of the image that you want to be properly exposed while the rest of the image will be too dark -- providing a dramatic framing in light of the object of interest. Your automatic exposure mechanism may overexpose the object of interest in order to make the whole field of view, on average, properly exposed. Since that is not the effect that you want, you set the exposure compensation to darken the image until you get the desired effect. Obviously, for the next image, this will probably be the wrong setting.

[E.T]

I assume problem is that highligths get blown too easily.

In that case try lowering contrast because most P&S literally overprocess images.