Over the last year, I have had several students ask me about learning to shoot using manual mode. When I explored it further, most were saying “I don’t want to use automatic. I want to learn the other settings on my camera.” A recent student said, “I want to be able to walk up, look at what I want to take a picture of, and know the correct settings”. I said, “When you’ve taken thousands of pictures it becomes easier.”
What’s important is getting the correct exposure and a good composition, not the Shooting Mode you use. A good photo is not determined by the Shooting mode.
Let’s look at getting the correct exposure over the last 50+ years.
Before light meters, there was the Sunny 16 Rule. A simple rule to follow: on a bright sunny day you set your shutter speed to be equal to the film speed and your aperture to f/16. So, on a sunny day, your 64 film speed setting was 1/64 with your aperture at f/16. Easy to remember, however, it is not necessarily the best way to get the correct exposure every time. You, of course, had to compensate for different lighting conditions: shade, cloudy, early morning, and late day along with the subject’s environment (i.e. beach, snow, and forest). I can still see my father with his roll-film camera looking at the sky, pausing then adjusting his camera’s aperture and speed to accommodate the existing lighting condition. Not to mention that you had to wait until the photos came back from being processed to know whether any of them were acceptable. Digital photography today gives us instant feedback. A real big plus!
ca. 1940
I got my first 35mm camera, a Kodak Pony IV, sometime in the early 1960s. This was a very basic camera with manual focus and no light meter. This camera used a system called Exposure Value (EV). The exposure (shutter speed and aperture) was adjusted on the lens barrel (see the red oval in the photo below). You were guided to the correct exposure value by following a card such as the one pictured below.
In 1959 and ’60, Nikon and Canon introduced 35 mm Single Lens Reflex Cameras (SLR) with a built-in lightmeter or you could have used a handheld lightmeter for determining the correct exposure. In the Canon, you adjusted the Aperture to align with the stopped down metering index (h). (See Canon AE-1 View Finder below)
The ’60s-’80s color film was available in several different ASA speeds (now ISO): 32, 64, 80, 100, 400, and 1000. These different speeds were required to be able to take photos under lighting conditions. The other alternative was to use an auxiliary flash on your camera. Your digital camera today has a built-in light meter with ISOs of 100 to 3200 or higher, giving you the ability to expose correctly in different lighting conditions.
Digital cameras today have three controls that primarily control exposure:
1) Aperture (A) commonly referred to as f-stop: the size of the lens opening that allows the light to hit the sensor.
2) Speed/Time (Tv or S) the length of time the shutter is open to allow light to hit the sensor.
3) ISO sensitivity setting of the sensor.
All three controls need to be properly set to get a correctly exposed picture, aperture, and shutter speed most correct and ISO for the sensitivity of the light conditions. The Exposure Triangle below illustrates the relationship between Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.
How do I choose the correct camera settings?
First: I set the ISO based on the current lighting conditions using the following as a general guide:
ISO 100-200: Best for bright daylight, likely the default setting on your camera.
ISO 200-400: Slightly less ambient light, outdoors in the shade or on a cloudy day such as indoors during the daytime.
ISO 400-800: Indoors, with a flash.
ISO 800-1600: Low light indoors or at night when you can’t use a flash.
ISO 1600-3200: Extreme low-light conditions without a flash. Depending on your camera** using the settings you may have a lot of grain or digital noise.
(**Newer mirrorless cameras generally have better lowlight performance than older DSLR cameras and professional cameras are better than lower-cost consumer cameras.)
Second: I choose the shooting mode in either Aperture, Speed, or Manual Mode.
Remember in Aperture or Speed Modes you are selecting your preference and the camera sets the proper corresponding speed or aperture.
My preference is to use Aperture Mode as it allows me to have the greatest control over the depth of field. I believe that Aperture Mode is the preference of most professional photographers along with Manual Mode.
If I were shooting a moving object, I would choose Speed Mode and set the minimum speed to 1/500 of a second or greater. In addition, I change the Focus Mode to Servo AF/AF-C and set the Shooting Mode to Continuous.
I seldom use Manual Mode as I find Aperture and Speed much more reliable for flower, nature, portrait, and travel photos. If the lighting and subject are constant then Manual Mode can be a good choice.
Third: I’ll take a test photo and look at the Histogram on the LCD screen to make sure that the histogram is not too far to the right. The white area on the right represents image pixels that are too bright and out of range, i.e. overexposed. You will want to avoid tall peaks on the right-hand side, except in high-key portraits.
To correct this condition, I would have to decrease the exposure using Exposure Compensation when using Aperture or Speed Mode. The effect would result in both the Memorial and the sky being darker. In Manual Mode, making the Aperture smaller or the Shutter Speed faster would have had the same effect, with both the Memorial and the sky being darker. In this example, the Dynamic range of this photo exceeded the capability of the camera to capture the shadow and the bright sky. In this lighting, a technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is necessary to overcome the limits of the camera or I could utilize post-processing.
(See this blog post for more information about Dynamic Range/ HDR)
Here is a link to my Camera Controls You Should Know, sheet.
Thoughts on Manual Mode by a wildlife photographer I follow on YouTube