How I transitioned to mostly manual, and why/when I use it

[HughGuessWho]

My Gawd. Some people just like to argue just for the sake of argument. The OP's post was a good one. You don't have to agree with every statement made, but it certainly isn't worthy of a bashing.
OP, thanks for contributing.

 

[fjrabon]

Perhaps I should lay out when I *personally* use manual, and when I use other modes as well.

Manual is my tool of choice when lighting is constant. If I'm shooting a night football game, I'll shoot manual, because what this allows me to do is have manual set for the field, and the one of the auto modes set to what I'll use if I want to quickly shoot the sidelines. For a night time football game, I know that the field is going to be lit the same the whole time if the sun has gone down, I can set it once and forget it. Then, I can also set A mode so that I can shoot the cheerleaders or crowd at moments as well. If you stick to one mode, this big difference in light between the field and the sidelines is hard for the camera to handle. For the sidlines I'll usually go A mode AND auto ISO, with the ISO max set at 3200. WHen lighting is constant, you can go manual and forget it, you don't have to worry about exposure lock, you just set your exposure one time and shoot nearly the whole game with that. Your pictures have the same look to them and tell a more coherent story. The auto modes, with stadium lights in a night game, are going to jump all over the place in the auto modes, as any sports shooter can tell you. One frame will look a full stop over exposed, the next a full stop underexposed. It's like the camera is searching for a problem to fix that isn't there sometimes.

Manual is also the ONLY tool when you're using strobes. Strobes can't do TTL, and the 3 stops of EC the auto modes give you aren't enough to deal with strobes. When you have a mix of ambient and strobes, well, that's why you're a photographer and not a snapshooter. Because you gotta understand a lot of stuff to get ambient plus strobes to work in harmony. But when they do, it's quite the beautiful thing.

Daytime outdoors without strobes, I use A mode. Set my DoF how I want, take a shot, dial in EC as necessary. The constantly changing nature of natural light makes manual cumbersome.

Street, I default to P mode, then switch over to manual if I have the time and want to be a bit more creative. Street a lot of times you don't have the opportunity to even set your aperture without missing the moment. A shot that captures the moment with a bit more DoF than you wanted is better than a shot that missed the moment with perfect DoF. I also default to auto ISO with the limit being 3200 and a min shutter speed of 1/60 (I'm usually shooting street with a 35mm lens on a crop frame).

Landscape I tend to use manual. Subject's not going anywhere, I can really hone in on exactly the settings I want for the exact exposure I want. Technically this breaks my daytime A mode rule, but landscape is different than generalized daytime outdoors shooting.

Outdoor portraits. Typically Im using speedlights, A mode and TTL. It can get a little complicated, as you're dialing flash and exposure compensation all over the place, but you're dealing with changing ambient, which means that A mode and TTL are a big help. Sometimes Ill set certain flashes to manual, others to TTL. Outdoor portraits are tricky to do right, gotta know how to use the tools.

Indoor portraits with speedlights. I personally tend to use manual on both the camera and flashes. You can go the A mode and TTL route. SOme people like it, I personally prefer double manual, because I understand flash better that way, but that's just me personally. It's not really more or less efficient.

Again, not saying any of these are right or wrong, that's just how I do them and my reasons for each. Take it all for what you want. Again, I'm simply writing this, because I never see how, when or why to shoot in the various modes on here. Just pointless arguments on which mode is 'better' or what % of the time you use each.

 

[unpopular]

Auto is fine. Manual is fine. But you're not going to see any improvement in either unless you understand exposure.

The only reason why Greystar and Derrel, or myself and Jake337 get good results using whatever exposure mode we prefer is because we understand exposure and camera control. The rest is just process and preference. But manual exposure alone doesn't make you a better photographer and auto exposure doesn't make your pictures any better.

 

[JAC526]

If you don't shoot in manual you are terrible photographer, person, and probably lover.

How about 2 out of 3?

I bet I can guess which one you want.

 

[fjrabon]

Auto is fine. Manual is fine. But you're not going to see any improvement in either unless you understand exposure.

The only reason why Greystar and Derrel, or myself and Jake337 get good results using whatever exposure mode we prefer is because we understand exposure and camera control. The rest is just process and preference. But manual exposure alone doesn't make you a better photographer and auto exposure doesn't make your pictures any better.

I've never really understood why exposure, in and of itself, is difficult. Especially if you're not using lights, and don't have to deal with how shutter speed differentially treats ambient v. flashed light.

What do people mean when they say 'understand exposure'? I really don't get how any old idiot can't just get a properly exposed photo.

Do people mean understand, artistically, what they want their exposure to be? Because that can be hard. But that doesn't seem to be what people mean by 'understanding exposure,' when they talk about it here.

how is it not just as simple as:

ISO - higher values make the picture brighter, lower values darker
Aperture - bigger numbers (putting aside the whole fraction v. whole number debate for a second) mean darker, lower numbers mean brighter
shutter - shorter shutters mean darker, longer shutters mean brighter

After that, you only need to understand the concept of a stop, which is pretty easy (though perhaps f/stops take a bit of memorizing, but are still relatively straight forward if you just remember the main ones, ie 1.4 -> 2 -> 2.8 -> 4 -> 5.6 -> 8 -> 11)

Flash complicates things a little bit, but when people here talk about 'understanding exposure' they are almost never talking about flash either.

 

[fjrabon]

No, you don't set exposure in one press of a button in any of the auto modes UNLESS YOU ARE USING THE VALUE IT GIVES YOU ie the standard Nikon exposure. If you're deviating from that exposure, you're using one button press *and a dial turn*. And if you decide to change your aperture at all, for a different depth of field, you're now using two dial turns and a button press. And if you want to lock the exposure, you're now using a button press, two dial turns and another button press.

The first button pressed locked exposure. You don't need to press it again. You're also failing to realize that exposure can be locked while spot metering any reference, hence giving me, with one button press, the same exposure you would have set yourself using manual mode, simply by spot metering the same reference.

But I wouldn't expect you to know these things because you don't know how to operate the AE functions of your camera.

Finally, as I said, manual is a MUST if you're using strobes. And I find it easier when using multiple speedlights, as TTL I've always found too finicky. But, like I said, This was mostly to try to explain how I go about using manual, because you have to understand it generally, to use it with flash.

That's true with studio strobes, but with speedlights and Nikon's AWL, I can use FV Lock to lock the lighting level, which will, once again, allow me to freely change my aperture without being distracted by exposure management.

Street, I default to P mode, then switch over to manual if I have the time and want to be a bit more creative.

I presume that's because it's impossible to be as creative with an auto mode...right? Because manual mode is better for being creative...right?

Please stop trying to sound like you're not bashing auto modes. You're just making things worse.

Yes, I realize you can turn AE lock on and off. I have my main function button set to AE lock. But if you want to use an auto mode, you turn it on and off, keeping it on all the time defeats the whole purpose of an auto mode. My bigger point is that if you are doing anything outside of the standard exposure, you're moving two dials and pushing a button. WHICH IS THE SAME THING AS MANUAL.

You are just ridiculous with how defensive you are about something as silly as P mode. P mode is fine, you love it. we get that. I never attacked it, you don't have to defend it. I'm JUST EXPLAINING HOW I USE MANUAL. ME PERSONALLY. Jesus, can you get that through your thick skull? As I outlined I use every single mode, though I don't use S mode very often.

There is nothing to understand about exposure lock. You press it, it locks, you press it, it unlocks, am I missing anything? I use it a lot when I shoot in A mode. It's a useful tool.

I said that I use manual when I want to be more creative, because that is HOW I PERSONALLY SHOOT. Not because you can't be creative in another mode. It's because I personally can get the results that I want more efficiently, when I want non-camera decided exposures, using manual, as opposed to an auto mode + EC. If you're more efficient a different way, FINE, BY ALL MEANS.

This whole thing was just explaining how I do things the way I do things. Because I rarely see anybody write posts like that. I know I personally would be fascinated to see Derrel, or Tyler, or Robin, or MLeek or unpopular, or really anybody explain how they personally approach shooting various environments.

 

[Dao]

I sort of began to notice a few things about my A mode shooting. First, using A mode with exposure compensation can be sort of annoying in certain conditions. SO lets say I'm taking a photo of a group of friends. Let's say that I dialed the perfect settings in for them using exposure compensation. Snap it, great. Next, another friend, wearing all white jumps into the photo. It's fairly bright daylight and the guy is wearing all white. This is going to confuse the camera's brain (because, after all, who would wear all white?), and it's going to cause the camera to throw your exposure off, as it tries to tone down that bright white. It might fight through and recognize faces (these things are smart) and hang on to the proper exposure for the faces, but it might not. And this is just one example, there are all sorts of scenarios where the camera gets fooled into changing your exposures, when you didn't want them changed.

I believe that has nothing to do with shooting mode. Av, TV or manual mode will face the same issue.

Yeah, hence why I said when I first started shooting manual I was still in the same rut. But I do think it's easy to get in a rut with it in A, P or S modes, simply because you have the camera basically asking you "are you sure you want to expose it that way? In all my Nikon encoded genius, I think that's not right, just leave that EC alone big guy." Sure, as I said, you can use EC and it's basically the same thing. But if you're constantly using EC, you're essentially using a less stable version of manual anyway. Some people like to shoot that way (Joe McNally does a lot, though he will also shoot in manual a lot when A mode and TTL gets finicky), some people like to shoot manual. One's not necessarily better or worse, although I will argue that some are more efficient than others in certain situations.

The whole point wasn't to advocate manual, but simply explain what my process is for shooting manual, how I approach shots with it, and a bit about when I think it works better. I certainly agree the flat out 'manual is always better and more professional' mindset is a plague, and many of the people who have that mindset don't even use manual correctly anyway.

I think I will do it differently.
I will spot meter an area (a person face, or arm, or grass or a gray shirt) where I believe will give me a good reading and exposure lock it. Basically A mode with the desire aperture, point at the area with spot meter, exposure lock (with my thumb), focus and take the shot.

However, if that white shirt guy keep coming and there are 20 plus shots need to take in the same scene, I may use manual setting at that time to save me some times (you can call me lazy). If only one or 2 shots, spot meter with exposure lock works faster for me.

 

[imagemaker46]

For the most part, a lot it comes from when a person first started to learn about photography. For example I always shoot manual, I learned that way with film cameras, it's easy for me, and I am very comfortable shooting this way. I always end up with the results I am looking for. If someone is comfortable shooting on auto and is satisfied with the results, that's good for them. If anyone wants to use the portrait, sport, landscape, AV, TV, VCR, BVD, MICKEY MOUSE, whatever mode they think will work good for them, if they're happy with the results, who cares. Discussions like this start to become pointless.

Personally I think it's a great idea to learn how to set a camera and shoot manual, but it's not for everyone.

 

[Mach0]

For the most part, a lot it comes from when a person first started to learn about photography. For example I always shoot manual, I learned that way with film cameras, it's easy for me, and I am very comfortable shooting this way. I always end up with the results I am looking for. If someone is comfortable shooting on auto and is satisfied with the results, that's good for them. If anyone wants to use the portrait, sport, landscape, AV, TV, VCR, BVD, MICKEY MOUSE, whatever mode they think will work good for them, if they're happy with the results, who cares. Discussions like this start to become pointless.

Personally I think it's a great idea to learn how to set a camera and shoot manual, but it's not for everyone.

+1

 

[timor]

Unpopular is right. Fifties or now, exposure problem is the same and ways to solve it are the same. Just now folks got in their hands overcomplicated supercomputers to shoot pictures and is getting lost in the maze of possible settings. Computers are not doing anything extraordinary, they do same thing as a guy with a spot meter, they just do it much faster. Matrix metering isn't anything new, it's used by photographers for as long as spot meters exists and that's dialing in compensation for a given light condition. Matrix metering is also supposed to make up for simple and very effective incident light metering, something, what even the best dslr cannot do.
If most of the folks so avidly shooting digital would learn on cameras from 50-ties having only spot meter to establish theirs exposures, there would be not so many questions.

 

[fjrabon]

I believe that has nothing to do with shooting mode. Av, TV or manual mode will face the same issue.

Yeah, hence why I said when I first started shooting manual I was still in the same rut. But I do think it's easy to get in a rut with it in A, P or S modes, simply because you have the camera basically asking you "are you sure you want to expose it that way? In all my Nikon encoded genius, I think that's not right, just leave that EC alone big guy." Sure, as I said, you can use EC and it's basically the same thing. But if you're constantly using EC, you're essentially using a less stable version of manual anyway. Some people like to shoot that way (Joe McNally does a lot, though he will also shoot in manual a lot when A mode and TTL gets finicky), some people like to shoot manual. One's not necessarily better or worse, although I will argue that some are more efficient than others in certain situations.

The whole point wasn't to advocate manual, but simply explain what my process is for shooting manual, how I approach shots with it, and a bit about when I think it works better. I certainly agree the flat out 'manual is always better and more professional' mindset is a plague, and many of the people who have that mindset don't even use manual correctly anyway.

I think I will do it differently.
I will spot meter an area (a person face, or arm, or grass or a gray shirt) where I believe will give me a good reading and exposure lock it. Basically A mode with the desire aperture, point at the area with spot meter, exposure lock (with my thumb), focus and take the shot.

However, if that white shirt guy keep coming and there are 20 plus shots need to take in the same scene, I may use manual setting at that time to save me some times (you can call me lazy). If only one or 2 shots, spot meter with exposure lock works faster for me.

The white shirt was just a theoretical example. The perhaps more common scenario is a flash aimed at the floor off a reflective surface. For whatever reason, TTL/A mode has trouble with that sort of light, it'll jump like crazy with it. However, to keep things simple I just introduced random guy with a white shirt, to just explain how a camera's computer can get fooled from time to time.

 

[fjrabon]

For the most part, a lot it comes from when a person first started to learn about photography. For example I always shoot manual, I learned that way with film cameras, it's easy for me, and I am very comfortable shooting this way. I always end up with the results I am looking for. If someone is comfortable shooting on auto and is satisfied with the results, that's good for them. If anyone wants to use the portrait, sport, landscape, AV, TV, VCR, BVD, MICKEY MOUSE, whatever mode they think will work good for them, if they're happy with the results, who cares. Discussions like this start to become pointless.

Personally I think it's a great idea to learn how to set a camera and shoot manual, but it's not for everyone.

Yeah, unfortunately this turned into the one discussion I had no interest whatsoever, a debate on which mode is better. I hate those threads. I felt like I was going out of my way to mention that I use all of the modes, I don't think any of them make a person more or less of a photographer. I just see a lot of people confused on how to shoot manual, what the thought process is with it, so I thought I'd just lay out how I do it, for whatever that may be worth.

If you're fully convinced that P mode is the be all and end all, and that manual is completely pointless and for stuck up idiots, I don't see why such a person would have read this thread in the first place.

 

[imagemaker46]

For the most part, a lot it comes from when a person first started to learn about photography. For example I always shoot manual, I learned that way with film cameras, it's easy for me, and I am very comfortable shooting this way. I always end up with the results I am looking for. If someone is comfortable shooting on auto and is satisfied with the results, that's good for them. If anyone wants to use the portrait, sport, landscape, AV, TV, VCR, BVD, MICKEY MOUSE, whatever mode they think will work good for them, if they're happy with the results, who cares. Discussions like this start to become pointless.

Personally I think it's a great idea to learn how to set a camera and shoot manual, but it's not for everyone.

Yeah, unfortunately this turned into the one discussion I had no interest whatsoever, a debate on which mode is better. I hate those threads. I felt like I was going out of my way to mention that I use all of the modes, I don't think any of them make a person more or less of a photographer. I just see a lot of people confused on how to shoot manual, what the thought process is with it, so I thought I'd just lay out how I do it, for whatever that may be worth.

If you're fully convinced that P mode is the be all and end all, and that manual is completely pointless and for stuck up idiots, I don't see why such a person would have read this thread in the first place.

People do get confused when it comes to shooting manual, after all there are so many settings that are required, iso, f-stop, shutter speed. It only takes one click of a dial to shoot on auto. But like I said if people are happy with their results then it all doesn't matter how they get to that point.

 

[unpopular]

Auto is fine. Manual is fine. But you're not going to see any improvement in either unless you understand exposure.

The only reason why Greystar and Derrel, or myself and Jake337 get good results using whatever exposure mode we prefer is because we understand exposure and camera control. The rest is just process and preference. But manual exposure alone doesn't make you a better photographer and auto exposure doesn't make your pictures any better.

I've never really understood why exposure, in and of itself, is difficult. Especially if you're not using lights, and don't have to deal with how shutter speed differentially treats ambient v. flashed light.

What do people mean when they say 'understand exposure'? I really don't get how any old idiot can't just get a properly exposed photo.

Do people mean understand, artistically, what they want their exposure to be? Because that can be hard. But that doesn't seem to be what people mean by 'understanding exposure,' when they talk about it here.

how is it not just as simple as:

ISO - higher values make the picture brighter, lower values darker
Aperture - bigger numbers (putting aside the whole fraction v. whole number debate for a second) mean darker, lower numbers mean brighter
shutter - shorter shutters mean darker, longer shutters mean brighter

After that, you only need to understand the concept of a stop, which is pretty easy (though perhaps f/stops take a bit of memorizing, but are still relatively straight forward if you just remember the main ones, ie 1.4 -> 2 -> 2.8 -> 4 -> 5.6 -> 8 -> 11)

Flash complicates things a little bit, but when people here talk about 'understanding exposure' they are almost never talking about flash either.

Understanding the so-called exposure triangle is easy. It's just a ratio of three terms. Where exposure gets tricky is when you start metering, and what the meter is telling you relative to exposure. Is that skin tone going to be Zone V or Zone IV? Is that concrete Zone VI or Zone VII? How will this region be rendered if that region is placed into any given zone? The more you think about exposure control, the less the concept of "proper exposure" really makes sense.

I didn't read your OP, but I am curious - when you do manual exposure what meter mode are you using?

 

[fjrabon]

Jesus Christ, I didn't mean P mode is silly as in it's a silly thing to use, I meant it's silly as in it's a silly thing to be obsessed with and defensive over. It's a silly thing to try to defend. It doesn't need defending. Manual is equally silly as a concept to defend. It's a tool. Use it when it gets you best results.

No, what I said was that if you want to use the benefit of the auto modes, you unlock it, so that it redecides how to expose. All I was saying.

Furthermore, Again, what I was saying is that I find it more efficient to use manual over a lot of exposure compensation/ aperture adjustments in P mode. I find it easier and more intuitive. That's all I've ever been saying. Outside of using strobes, I've never presented manual as anything as inherently better than any other mode. I tend to use manual personally because I work with strobes a lot, and thus I've grown more comfortable with it, and it just works better for me, personally. Again, I see a lot of people curious on here about manual, but they don't really know how to jump into it and try it out. And yes, you do have to jump into it at some point if you want to use strobes. and if you're going to go very far into various sorts of photography, you need to understand manual. I was talking to a couple of shooters about why newer photographers get so frazzled with strobes, and we all sort of agreed it was because they felt uncomfortable with manual to begin with, and then adding strobes on top of that was what made it hard for them. So, even if you love P mode, you need to understand manual, how to approach it (and I'm sure you do, because from what I gather you're a good shooter, again this thread wasn't directed at you, it's directed at people who feel lost as soon as they turn the dial over to M).

Sure, you find P mode easier and more intuitive, great. Don't worry about what I have to say about manual. I don't find anything wrong with shooting in P mode and using EC, program shift and exposure lock. I PERSONALLY find it cumbersome, but that's probably because I use strobes a lot and don't think in terms of program shift and EC, I think in terms of shutter speed and aperture. I can shoot in the other modes, sometimes more efficiently in certain situations. I certainly don't think to be a pro you have to shoot in manual. Like I said, my absolute favorite photographer, Joe McNally, shoots in A and TTL more often than not.