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My closeup photos are too over exposed when I use the built in flash on my D5000. I am shooting close ups of flowers, insects, and the like, quite often in dimly lit, wooded areas; I am using the "Apature-priority auto" mode. Even though I shoot RAW images, dialing down the brightness setting can't compensate for the over exposure. I never had this problem with my D60. I tried higher ISO setting but then everything gets very grainy. I also tried setting the flash compensation to its lowest level, -3, but that didn't seem to have any effect. The only way I found so far to "fix" the problem is to physically cover about 75-80% of the flash, this works but I notice an odd odor and am worried I am going to eventually damage the flash unit.

I can't shoot in manual mode because most of the time I only have a very narrow window in which to even try to get focus much less try to adjust all the settings manually. Trying to carry around an extenal flash is also not a realistic choice.
 

My closeup photos are too over exposed when I use the built in flash on my D5000. I am shooting close ups of flowers, insects, and the like, quite often in dimly lit, wooded areas; I am using the "Apature-priority auto" mode. Even though I shoot RAW images, dialing down the brightness setting can't compensate for the over exposure. I never had this problem with my D60. I tried higher ISO setting but then everything gets very grainy. I also tried setting the flash compensation to its lowest level, -3, but that didn't seem to have any effect. The only way I found so far to "fix" the problem is to physically cover about 75-80% of the flash, this works but I notice an odd odor and am worried I am going to eventually damage the flash unit.

I can't shoot in manual mode because most of the time I only have a very narrow window in which to even try to get focus much less try to adjust all the settings manually. Trying to carry around an external flash is also not a
realistic choice.