Photography 101: How Do I Start Using Manual Mode?

So you’ve finally purchased a fancy new DSLR camera with a great camera sensor, you’ve seen a noticeable improvement in the quality of your images but you’re blown away by the content some people are able to produce with the same hardware on sites like Flickr. What are they doing different? If you’re like most beginners you probably shoot using auto or standard icon modes, but in order to truly get the most out of your camera, you’re going to want to learn how to shoot using manual mode.

DSLR cameras have multiple camera modes including auto mode and full manual settings built in your camera settings. The changes can usually be made either via the ring around the lens or via the menu in the camera settings. Once you have set the DSLR camera to using manual mode, you are ready to go. Using manual mode is common amongst both beginners and professionals.

Let’s do a tutorial about shooting stills and videos in when setting the program mode to manual on a digital camera, and find the exposure settings that you would be searching for.

Why Shoot in Manual Mode?

Two words: complete control. There are no real surprises once you’ve truly mastered manual mode, as you’ll have full control of the three major points of the exposure triangle aperture, shutter speed and ISO. We’ll go into detail on each of these points later in this article, but for now here’s a brief list of the situations where knowing manual mode is a big plus:

• Bokeh - Those artistic photos with blurred backgrounds filled with circles of light.

• To avoid unexpected flash when shooting in low light conditions.

• Silhouettes

• Incorporating motion blur for artistic reasons.

• Anything that requires a creative angle, focal point or shot.

How to Shoot in Manual Mode

Now let's return to the exposure triangle—aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The general process of shooting in manual mode might look something like this:

1. Check the exposure of your shot with the light meter visible through your viewfinder.

2. Pick an aperture.

3. Adjust the shutter speed.

4. Pick an ISO setting versus the auto ISO found in

5. If the light meter “ticker” is lined up with 0 you have achieved a proper exposure on your picture.

6. Take the Shot and get the correct exposure.

Light Meter 

You’ve probably noticed the little number line at the bottom of your field of view when you look through the viewfinder that looks something like this: -2...1...0...1...2+ (Canon) or +2...1...0...1...2- (Nikon). This is the light meter, and when aligned with 0 you know that your photo will come out properly exposed. Of course if you are going for a certain effect, it may be necessary to be a little over or under exposed and you can use the light meter to help you achieve the desired effect.

Aperture

The aperture is the hole at the center of your camera’s shutter or iris. If you’re aiming for professional blurred background or the artistic Bokeh, it helps to set your aperture (also known as f-stop) and can basically be thought of as a means of adjusting the amount of your picture that is in focus. The lower the f number, or aperture the more light reaches your sensor, and the more of your background is blurred. In addition the lower aperture will have a shallower depth of field. The higher the f number, the greater the field of focus and the more of your picture will be in focus with higher depth of field. In other words, low f-number gives more light with a blurrier background; high f-number gives less light and a sharper background.

In other words a narrow aperture, the rule of thumb is choosing a larger number f-stop – such as, f/18 or f/16 which makes a small opening to let the amount of light through. As the opening is small, the camera needs to make up for the loss of light by slowing the shutter speed to achieve a well-exposed image.

What is aperture priority mode versus using manual mode? Aperture priority mode is faster than using manual mode. It reacts to lightroom automatically, so you are less likely to get a an overexposed or underexposed photo. Third, it maintains almost all your control over the camera, so you can still select the optimal settings for almost any shot such as focal length, white balance and even change from a short exposure to a long exposure. Just as if you had done things manually.

Shutter Speed 

Setting your shutter priority mode is crucial. Your shutter speed can be thought of as the amount of time your camera’s shutter is open allowing light to hit your camera’s light sensor. Typically denoted as a fraction of a second (e.g. 1/125), your shutter speed will have an effect on the sharpness of your subject.

Lower or slow shutter speeds let in more light, but make your image susceptible to camera shake which can cause blur and requires a steady hand or tripod. Faster shutter speeds let in less light, but can give you a sharper subject and an image less susceptible to unsteady hands. For example, if you are a landscape photographer, utilizing a fast shutter speed versus a slower shutter speed can get you the sharp image of some tremendous detailed landscaping you may have just done and would pop out nicely on your company website.

For moving subjects or objects such as cars and birds in flight, shutter speeds of 1/2000 sec, 1/4000 sec or quicker should give you proper exposure.

ISO

ISO can be thought of as your camera’s sensitivity to light situations, with typical ranges on DSLR’s today being 200-1600. There is high ISO and low ISO. The lower the ISO number (low ISO), the more light is required to get a good exposure on your photographs and the less noise you will see in your resulting images. Higher ISO numbers allow you to shoot better quality photos in lower light conditions, but the more noise you may see in the background of your images. DSLR’s can producer better quality images at higher ISOs because of the larger size of the pixels in their image sensors. They also often feature noise reduction to further assist in maintaining quality at higher ISO numbers.  As a general guideline, shooting outside under the sun, ISO 100-200 is a safe bet, but if you’re shooting indoors under low lighting you want to be in the ISO 800-1600 range.

The Best Way to Learn—Just Do It!

When you’re starting out as a beginner, developing an intuitive understanding of how the different points of the exposure triangle play off one another may seem overwhelming at first, but shooting in manual gets easier over time. Since you have to consciously select your settings, you’ll develop a feel for how much exposure you need and what combination of ISO, aperture and shutter speed is required to achieve a desired effect. Go wild, get creative and practice using manual mode for your shots, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll improve once you master the exposure triangle.

Remember as well images can be edited more to your liking in post-processing or photoshop. But following our “cheat sheet” of settings and photography tips when using manual mode versus automatic mode should help make you a digital photography savant taking great portrait photography.