Shooting Manual or Auto-unhijacking the other thread

[mrodgers]

I'm enjoying this-I'm glad everyone is treating it as a conversation and not a one-sided argument.

However, you've just exposed what's been my argument all along-you learn how the camera works, then you try to achieve just what Auto would capture by making all the adjustments yourself, instead of letting the camera do it for you just because you know what settings it would choose.

An answer to this is yes and no. It is yes because in the general sense, you do want the same exposure unless you are in a more complicated scene. With auto mode, I am thinking this, I don't know if you can change the metering areas in auto such as spot, average, etc. I would think in auto it is metering the entire scene and you can not change it. If that is the case, then if you have a subject such as a black Lab, you will definitely not get the same shot in auto as you would in manual with a "correct" exposure. In auto, the dog would be completely black with no detail as the camera would be trying for an overall exposure. In manual, you would be specifically exposing for the dog to get the dog in "correct" exposure. This is assuming that you can not change to a different metering mode in auto since I can't look at my camera at the moment.

The answer is no because exposure isn't everything. If all you are doing is shooting for correct exposure, then you are not really engaging in the art of photography. There is more to photography than exposure and you do have to factor in DOF, motion, noise, and even flash. There is no control over any of that in auto mode.

Thus if your "argument" is only exposure, then you are only touching a single aspect of the art of photography. I'll go back to what I said a while ago with driving (if you saw that post, 2nd page I think). Person A drives a car with an auto transmission, antilock brakes, automatic AWD, etc and person B drives a car with a 5 speed manual, no antilocks, or no automatic anything, which person is engaging in the act of driving a car more? The person who just makes his car go, stop, and turn or person B who actually has to select the proper gear, threshhold brake on slippery roads, and select 4WD when the roads are snowy? Just as in there is more to driving a vehicle than smashing the throttle to go and smashing the brake to stop, there is more to photography than achieving the correct exposure.