Manual setting

DxAxN

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Well I finally took it out of Auto and into manual... and things just went down hill from there. Having to adjust your settings every shot was a real challenge and the fact that it was partly cloudy didnt help. Seemed every time I was ready to take a shot the sun would come out and I would need to readjust. I thought I had taken some good shots but when I looked at them when I got home they were far less than what I expected. Seems that anything with a light color was overexposed. Of course I really didnt have a clue on where my starting point should be...Basically I turned on the camera put it in M and followed the metering indicator and made my adjustments off of that. Oh well...at least I had the day off.
 
If you've only shot in auto, maybe just try S, or A, priority to start. That way you can learn a little at atime, and it might not be so overwhelming. Just athought, but hey guess the best way to learn is to just do it and keep practicing. Either way good luck, I still struggle all the time so i feel ya.
 
I hope you didn't think you'd figure this all out on your day off. Those of us from the film-era can remember wasting many many rolls of film as we learned this stuff. Don't give up. It may not be easy, but when you're done you'll have a much better understanding of the exposure triangle. Have fun with the challenge.
 
It took me some time getting acquainted with the different light metering modes on my camera when I started shooting in manual. I have more to learn yet, but have started to get a feel for when to use evaluative vs partial weighted metering. (I haven't tried center-weighted average yet). I'm happy enough that I'm getting it right pretty often now. (probably just jinxed myself now!)

I'm not sure this is the _best_ approach, but when there is a brighter area I often meter off that and sort of guess how much to vary my exposure. I usually try to take a few shots at different exposure settings, especially when I'm feeling unsure.

One thing you might also consider is setting your camera to shoot in bracketed mode at 2/3 - 1 full stop increments. I did this for a short while as well.

Overall I seem to find that I now error on the side of under-exposing my shots, but they usually still come out about right. I still over-expose them more often than under-expose.
 
Well I finally took it out of Auto and into manual... and things just went down hill from there. Having to adjust your settings every shot was a real challenge and the fact that it was partly cloudy didnt help. Seemed every time I was ready to take a shot the sun would come out and I would need to readjust. I thought I had taken some good shots but when I looked at them when I got home they were far less than what I expected. Seems that anything with a light color was overexposed. Of course I really didnt have a clue on where my starting point should be...Basically I turned on the camera put it in M and followed the metering indicator and made my adjustments off of that. Oh well...at least I had the day off.

This scenario is one where most experienced photographers understand the value of automatic exposure metering. Peek-a-boo sunlight.
 
Most people just shoot in aperture priority.

Manual is usually used if you want to achieve a certain effect, or if your camera's meter is getting tricked.
 
Most people just shoot in aperture priority.

Manual is usually used if you want to achieve a certain effect, or if your camera's meter is getting tricked.

This is what I do. No shooting in Manual just to say I do. Aperture priority is faster for me and most of the time it just works. If I don't like the result or I need something specific I'll go into manual.
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of photography. At least you're playing w/ digital and spending about $0.10 cents per click (shutter life) and not a $1 per frame, like number of us did during film days.
Shooting manual has its positives and negatives. But it takes practice and time to get used to. It also takes experience reading the scene.
As many mentioned and I'll second it, shoot in PSA modes. CAREFULLY look over your shots and see what camera was doing and WHY it did what it did. Play with different metering modes - based on the scene your exposure might vary. Play w/ auto modes at night/dark and see what camera is doing...
Shooting in M has its privileges but to get there you really should know and understand more about exposure and how different factors influence it. (iso 400 f8 1/125 = iso 100 f4 1/125 = iso 100 f8 1/30) All will give you the same exposure but looks will be different.
if you want to PM and discuss more, go ahead.
Good Luck
 
Well I finally took it out of Auto and into manual... and things just went down hill from there. Having to adjust your settings every shot was a real challenge and the fact that it was partly cloudy didnt help. Seemed every time I was ready to take a shot the sun would come out and I would need to readjust. I thought I had taken some good shots but when I looked at them when I got home they were far less than what I expected. Seems that anything with a light color was overexposed. Of course I really didnt have a clue on where my starting point should be...Basically I turned on the camera put it in M and followed the metering indicator and made my adjustments off of that. Oh well...at least I had the day off.

The only challenge to shooting in manual is speed of execution before something changes. You have a bazillion dollars and hours worth of research/technology in your hand that tells you what settings to use in manual.

Take a reading in auto and note the shutter speed and aperture.

Switch to manual so that you can deliberately do what you want. Lets say to want to do shutter speed tricks. For every click (stop) you vary on the shutter speed from the auto recommendation you must make a corresponding number of clicks (stops) on the aperture. The net result is the same overall exposure in terms of EV as would have been made following the auto suggestion. If you want to do aperture tricks then the shutter speed gets the follow along clicks.

You have a bazillion dollars and hours worth of research/technology in your hand that tells you what settings to use in manual.
 
Thanks for the input...it wasnt until I was at work this morning when I thought to myself...why didnt I just use the S or A modes to start out. So I am gonna go that route next time.

Nah I didnt think I was gonna learn it all in one day...I just wanted to go out and shoot and try and progress...but I can say if I had a big ego I would have been humbled by the "M"

I tried a few differnet things while I was out yesterday...B/W...slow shutter speed to get a blury effect
 
I shoot predominantly in aperture priority, I use manual after assessing a scene if it requires it, or use exposure compensation, camera manufacturers spent millions on this, so if one mode can make life easier, use that mode, you'll not get a mutley badge for shooting full manual, what you will get till you master it is a whole lot of missed opportunities and shots. H
 
I would agree i usually shoot in apeture priority or shutter priority whatever I'm going for that way you just adjust one instead of having to adjust both along with the iso's depending on the situation and all that.
 
My first camera was an aperture priority camera, Nikon FE, and it is a great mode to shoot in but manual is needed to be learned as well. "Correct" exposure may not be the right exposure and auto anything is going to give the "correct" exposure.

As others have said, in the film era we spent lots of money learning (or trying to learn) photography. It can be expensive today with the need of a computer and software if you decide not to use the free stuff but the actual exposure costs nothing. The film era SLRs were much easier to use IMO compared to DSLRs but there is much more control today than there was back then.

Some things I have found in my camera - my light meter seemed backward to me so I recently changed it's orientation, I changed the light meter from matrix to center weighted to see if I get better photos, I locked down the center point vs keeping it floating and made sure my ISO is set to 200 vs whatever.

My suggestion is to bracket when you use manual - take correct, -1, +1 to see how the subject or exposure comes out.
 
Everything is trial n error till you have the camera set the way you like it or know how and when to compensate, that comes with experience, expect to make many mistakes along the way, whether digital or film. H
 

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