Manual mode gives photographers complete control over the camera's ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings to independently adjust light exposure and depth of field. The document recommends setting aperture first based on desired depth of field, then shutter speed for image sharpness, and finally adjusting ISO or other settings to achieve proper exposure based on the exposure meter. Shooting in manual mode allows photographers to precisely control photographic effects like background blur, motion blur, image brightness, and image quality in low light.
Manual mode gives photographers complete control over the camera's ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings to independently adjust light exposure and depth of field. The document recommends setting aperture first based on desired depth of field, then shutter speed for image sharpness, and finally adjusting ISO or other settings to achieve proper exposure based on the exposure meter. Shooting in manual mode allows photographers to precisely control photographic effects like background blur, motion blur, image brightness, and image quality in low light.
Manual mode gives photographers complete control over the camera's ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings to independently adjust light exposure and depth of field. The document recommends setting aperture first based on desired depth of field, then shutter speed for image sharpness, and finally adjusting ISO or other settings to achieve proper exposure based on the exposure meter. Shooting in manual mode allows photographers to precisely control photographic effects like background blur, motion blur, image brightness, and image quality in low light.
Manual mode gives photographers complete control over the camera's ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings to independently adjust light exposure and depth of field. The document recommends setting aperture first based on desired depth of field, then shutter speed for image sharpness, and finally adjusting ISO or other settings to achieve proper exposure based on the exposure meter. Shooting in manual mode allows photographers to precisely control photographic effects like background blur, motion blur, image brightness, and image quality in low light.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 10
How to Shoot in Manual Mode
What is Manual mode in photography?
Manual mode gives you complete control over your camera settings. Once your camera is set to Manual, you can adjust different settings and even control your flash.
Most importantly, shooting in Manual lets you independently adjust the three key exposure variables:
1. ISO
2. Aperture
3. Shutter speed
Together, the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed determine the overall brightness of your photos (i.e., the exposure). They also affect your photos in other key ways – by adjusting the sharpness, depth of field, and overall image quality.
That’s what makes Manual mode so powerful. In Manual, you can make your photos appear exactly as dark or light as you want. You can also ensure perfect sharpness, create different depth of field effects, and keep your low-light photos looking high quality.
ISO Simply put, ISO controls your camera’s sensitivity to light.
So by adjusting the ISO, you can increase your camera’s light sensitivity which will, in turn, give you a brighter image.
Say you’re shooting at night and your shots keep turning out too dark. If you’re working in Manual mode, you can boost your ISO – and your images will instantly brighten up.
On the flip side, if you’re shooting on a sunny day and you want to reduce your exposure, you can drop the ISO to achieve a darker result.
Unfortunately, ISO does come with a significant drawback. As illustrated by the ISO cheat sheet below, the higher the ISO, the noisier your photos become. Noise rarely looks good, and it’s an easy way to ruin an otherwise great image. For that reason, I generally recommend you leave your ISO on its lowest value unless you specifically need to raise it (e.g., you’re shooting in low light).
Aperture The aperture is an opening in the lens. The wider the aperture, the more light it lets in and the brighter the resulting exposure (see the aperture cheat sheet below): Note that photographers use f-stops to refer to aperture sizes, where a smaller f- stop refers to a larger aperture and vice versa.
So an aperture of f/1.4 lets in a lot of light, giving you a brighter image. An aperture of f/22 lets in very little light, producing a darker image.
Aperture is also responsible for controlling the depth of field – the amount
of your image that is in focus. The larger the aperture, the smaller the depth of field. Here’s an image with a shallow depth of field (shot at f/2.8 or so): And here’s an image with a deep depth of field (shot around f/11): See the difference? The wide aperture ensured a very blurry background (though a portion of the flower is still sharp). The narrow aperture, on the other hand, kept the shot sharp from foreground to background.
So if you want a nice, blurry background, you can use Manual mode to dial in a low f-number. And if you want a shot that’s sharp throughout, you can dial in a high f- number instead.
Shutter speed Shutter speed is essentially the exposure time of an image; that is, how long the shutter stays open to allow light to hit the sensor. The faster the shutter speed, the less light that hits the camera sensor and the darker the final image.
The shutter speed also determines image sharpness. A fast shutter speed freezes the action, while a slow shutter speed will produce motion blur:
In general, it pays to use a higher shutter speed to capture sharp images. But there are times when you might want to create motion blur for artistic effect, in which case a slower shutter speed is the way to go. One extra setting: white balance White balance is one final Manual mode setting worth learning.
It lets you remove color casts from your scene – and by adjusting the white balance, you can achieve neutral white tones. (It’s especially useful for removing harsh yellow tones or redness on the skin.) White balance can be used in unconventional ways to get different creative results. For example, you can use the Tungsten white balance preset on an overcast day to produce blue hues and enhance contrast. Or you can use the Shade white balance preset at sunset to enhance the golden light.
Therefore, it’s highly beneficial to experiment with the various white balance modes; you never know what creative looks you might produce!
How to use Manual mode: a three-step process
So, Manual mode lets you adjust your ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to get a well-exposed – or poorly-exposed – final image. (It also lets you adjust your white balance setting to remove color casts and produce creative effects.) And once you’ve switched your camera to Manual mode, the goal is to carefully set your variables for the results you’re after. But how should you approach this? What’s the best way to go about determining the right Manual mode settings?
While there’s no single correct approach to adjusting settings in Manual, here’s my
step-by-step advice:
Step 1: Set your aperture based on depth of field
considerations Do you want a shallow depth of field? Or a deep depth of field?
Start by dialing in your desired aperture. If you want a blurry background, pick a wide aperture. If you want a sharp background, pick a narrow aperture.
Step 2: Set your shutter speed for sharpness
Ask yourself:
How fast is my subject moving? What shutter speed do I need to keep it sharp?
Here, you might think about using the handy Reciprocal Rule, or you might estimate based on previous experiences. When shooting handheld, I rarely stray below 1/125s or so (and if my subject is moving quickly, 1/800s is my bottom limit).
Of course, if you’re after artistic blur or you’re using a tripod to photograph an
unmoving subject, you’re free to lower your shutter speed to 1/30s and beyond.
Step 3: Set your ISO (and adjust your shutter
speed/aperture) for the best exposure At this point, you should have picked an aperture based on artistic considerations, and you should have a shutter speed dialed in for perfect sharpness.
So all that’s left is to nail the exposure, and I recommend you do it with your ISO, if possible (though you may also need to tweak your shutter speed and aperture).
Start by setting your ISO to its lowest value. This is generally ISO 100, but might be ISO 160, ISO 200, or ISO 50, depending on your camera.
Then simply point your camera at the scene you want to photograph and carefully observe the exposure bar at the bottom of your viewfinder. If the bar is showing underexposure (skewed to the left), you’ll need to increase your ISO until you get a centered exposure bar.
If the bar is showing overexposure (skewed to the right), you’ll need to either
increase your shutter speed or narrow your aperture until you get a balanced exposure bar. Which setting you adjust doesn’t really matter – the key is to preserve any creative effects you want to produce. So if you’re using a wide aperture for a shallow depth of field, then boost your shutter speed instead. Whereas if you’re using a slow shutter speed for artistic motion blur, then narrow your aperture.
