Manual Mode: A Complete Guide to Shooting in Manual and Everything YOU need to Take any Photo Imaginable
Introduction:
Manual mode. To some, it’s the only acceptable mode to shoot in. To others, it’s an intimidating screen full of numbers and letters that would be best left alone. Either way, learning to shoot in manual is the next big step when it comes to improving your photo game. Manual mode isn’t even hard to learn. In fact, manual is simply a balancing act around 3 settings (ISO, aperture, and shutter speed) and getting the effect and proper exposure for your photo. Each setting controls a certain element in the shot as well as the amount of light let into the camera’s sensor. While reading, you might feel overwhelmed but that’s ok. I’ll break this up bit by bit so you can easily understand everything. Rome wasn’t built in a day. I don’t claim to know every single aspect of manual mode, but I do want to share all my knowledge with you. By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll be able to take any kind of picture imaginable.
The Sensor:
Now, you may find it strange that I’m talking about the sensor first. But, in fact, understanding how the sensor works is pivotal in your complete understanding on how to manipulate the 3 settings in manual mode. The sensor is a part of the camera, hidden under the shutter, that controls how exposed your image is. When you click the shutter button to take a picture, the shutter flips up to expose the sensor to light. How long the sensor is exposed to light, how much of the sensor is exposed to light, and how sensitive the sensor is to light all determine how well exposed your image is going to be. All these variables can be manipulated in manual. There are three settings in manual mode. Each setting controls a separate effect in the photo as well as control either how sensitive, how long, or how much the sensor is exposed to light. These three settings are all able to be tweaked on the manual screen page and make up the exposure triangle. The perfect photo balances all these settings so that you achieve the proper exposure as well as the correct effect in your photo. If one of these elements is not balanced properly and the incorrect amount of light is let into the sensor, the photo may seem underexposed or overexposed.
When you press the shutter button, the shutter flips up to expose the sensor to light. This determines how bright your image will be. When the shutter closes, the camera takes in how much light the sensor was exposed to and uses that to process the image. Too much light and the image will seem very white or blown out. Too little light and the image will seem very dark. This shutter system only applies to DSLRs
The Manual Screen:
This screen displays all you need to know.
. 1 The typical manual screen. Cite
Now, I know that this screen is very crowded and cluttered, but I’ll break everything down into easy bite-sized chunks.
The Exposure Triangle:
The Exposure triangle is just a fancy term to show the balance between the light let into a sensor as well as the effect achieved while adjusting the settings in manual mode. Manual mode is simply a balance of three settings (hence the triangle). These settings are ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Each setting is responsible for adjusting both a certain effect as well the amount of light let into the camera’s sensor. For example, ISO adjusts the sensor’s sensitivity to light. So, the higher the ISO, the brighter the final image. However, ISO also controls the noise. The higher the ISO, the more noise will be in the shot (more on this later.) Aperture controls the aperture blades around the lens and controls how much light is let into the sensor (how big the hole is for light to pass through.) The higher the aperture, the deeper the depth of field is. However, the higher the aperture, the less amount of light will go into the sensor, so the darker the image. Shutter speed controls how fast the shutter clicks and how long the sensor is exposed to light. The faster the shutter, the more time you will freeze. But, because the sensor is exposed to light for a shorter time, the darker the image will be. This information may sound very overwhelming right now as well as a lot of information to take in but I’ll break this up bit by bit so you can better understand. Trust me. You will get this, and you’ll realize just how easy manual really is. Below, you will see a graphic of the exposure triangle as well lines to denote the 3 settings. All the settings must be perfectly adjusted to form the triangle and get the shot.
. 2 The Exposure Triangle. The 3 settings represent each side of the triangle and to achieve the photo you want, each side must be balanced and the settings must be correct. Cite
. 3 The settings for the exposure triangle
These 3 settings are the most important. Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. They are the elements that make up the basic exposure triangle and are the 3 settings you’ll be tweaking the most. Each one controls a certain effect of the photo as well as the amount of light let into the sensor. I’ll touch up on the other settings in manual mode, but this post is going to mainly focus on these 3 settings.
NOTE: Adjust the setting that determines the effect and then use the other settings to adjust the light. the effect comes first. Then, the exposure balancing. Always adjust the setting that controls the effect first. Lock it in and use the other settings to compensate for exposure.
Shutter Speed:
Understanding Shutter Speed and its Effect on Light:
Probably the easiest setting to understand, shutter speed is just how fast the shutter of the camera is, or how long until the shutter goes click. Shutter speed is measured in seconds and is denoted on the camera by the graphic shown below.
. 4 Shutter speed displayed in the manual screen
The shutter speed in this instance is 1/125th of a second. That means the time between pressing the shutter button, to opening the shutter, to closing the shutter, is 1/125th of a second. The sensor, therefore, is only exposed to light for 1/125th of a second and captures 1/125th of a second’s worth of imaging. This is a pretty standard shutter speed. You can adjust this setting (on most cameras) from 1/4000th of a second to how ever long you want. We call a shutter speed of say, 1/800th, a fast shutter and a speed of say, 3s a slow shutter speed. In a scenario where the shutter speed is 1/800th, The sensor is only exposed to 1/800th of second’s worth of light. Because of the short length of time that the sensor is exposed to light, the final image will be dark. In a scenario where the shutter speed is 3s, the sensor is exposed to 3 seconds of light. So, the image will be very bright. You will have to use the other 2 settings to adjust the brightness of the image.
This gif shows how the shutter works. By pressing the button, the shutter flips up to reveal the sensor to light. How much light the sensor picks up depends on how long the shutter stays flipped up. The time of the shutter opening to closing is controlled by the shutter speed setting.
The Effect of Shutter Speed:
Now that you understand what shutter speed is, it’s time to understand how it affects a photo. The faster the shutter speed, the more time you can freeze and capture in one frame. Take a shutter of 1/800th for example. Because you’re only capturing 1/800th of a second’s worth of time, you can freeze anything going fast. Here’s an image I took of Snap Boogie during one of his performances.
. 5 Fast shutter speed of Snap Boogie. ISO 400 -f2.8-1/1000
The shutter speed in this shot is 1/1000th of a second. By setting my shutter to this speed, I was able to capture 1/1000th of a second’s worth of time in the world, and freeze frame it. This is how photographers get such sharp images of objects in high-speed movement. The general rule of thumb is, to shoot anything that is fast paced, set your shutter to at least 1/800th of a second. Lock that value in and use the other settings to properly control the amount of light coming in to expose the image. When I say lock that value, I literally just mean don’t change it.
On the contrary, the slower the shutter speed, the more time you can capture in one frame. This gives you the effect of slowing down time. A slow shutter speed is used when taking long exposures or light trails.
. 6 Light streaks of an ambulance. ISO 100- f14- 15s
For this shot, I set the shutter speed to 15 seconds. This means that the shutter is open for and the sensor is exposed to light for 15 seconds. This allows me to capture 15 seconds worth of time into one shot. As a result, you see all the movement that happened in those 15 seconds consolidated into one single frame. I adjusted for proper exposure using the other 2 settings. Next, take a look at this Seaport long exposure.
. 7 A long exposure shot of Fan Pier. ISO 100- f8- 40s
For this long exposure of Fan Pier, I set the shutter speed to 40 seconds. Some cameras only go down to 30 seconds. However, if you scroll past 30s when setting your shutter speed (aka exposure time), you’ll see a setting called bulb. Bulb allows you to hold down the shutter for as long as you want. However, you don’t want to be holding down the shutter button for 40 seconds or any period past 30 seconds for that matter. For one, that’s tiring. And two, think of all the camera shake. Using your remote, lock the shutter in place and wait for as long as you want on your exposure time. Just release when you’re done, and you can shoot forever. Generally, if you’re doing any kind of exposure where you need the tripod, also use the remote. This is because the smallest amount of camera shake, (including the shake that happens when you press the shutter button) can affect the image sharpness. For 40 seconds, since this shot was taken during the day, the image was VERY bright to point that it was just a white screen and adjusting for the exposure using the other settings wasn’t enough. For this case filters and exposure stacking come in to play to help correct the exposure. But, that’s not related to manual mode, so I’ll talk about that in another post. Just know that this photo captures 40 seconds of movement in one shot and I adjusted for exposure using the other settings.
Implementing Shutter Speed: When to adjust shutter speed
Shutter speed is prioritized when the effect you want to go for is to freeze or stretch out time. When you want to take action shots or long exposures. The other settings in this case are adjusted simply for exposure compensation. When taking an action shot, set a fast shutter speed to freeze time, lock it in, and use ISO and aperture to adjust for light compensation. When shooting a long exposure, set a slow shutter speed to capture more time, lock it in, and use ISO and aperture to adjust for exposure. Also, make sure to use a tripod when shooting long exposures because even the smallest shake at a slow shutter speed can affect the sharpness of an image and cause image blur. When shooting handheld, make sure the shutter speed isn’t too slow or else the image will also have blur. A rule of thumb is when looking at the focal length of a lens, multiply it by 2 and that’s the slowest shutter you should have to avoid and motion blur.
. 8 Graphic of shutter speed’s effects on the photo and on light
Each setting controls an effect and affects the light put in the sensor. For shutter speed, the faster the shutter, the more time you can freeze, but the less light the sensor will pick up. The slower the shutter speed, the time you can capture, but the more light the sensor will pick up. Fast and slow refer to how fast the shutter clicks. Increasing and decreasing refers to how much time the shutter is open for.
Aperture:
Understanding Aperture and its Effect on Light:
The next setting to discuss is the aperture. This setting controls the blades around the lens and can make the entrance of light into the lens larger or smaller. The aperture is denoted by the letter f in front of a number (ex. f2.8, f4, f13). What the aperture measures is quite strange. The formula is, N=L/D where N is the number in front of the f (f2.8, f4), L is the focal length, and D is the diameter of the entrance hole of the lens. If you understood none of that, that’s ok because it doesn’t matter to the overall understanding of what aperture does. For the effect on light, just know that lower number like f1.8 or f2 means larger hole, smaller surface area of the aperture blades, and more light, and a higher number like f12 or f16 means smaller hole, greater surface area of the aperture blades, and less light.
. 9 The aperture setting as it appears on the manual screen
Aperture as denoted on the manual screen. In this example, the aperture is set to f2.8
As you can see, when you adjust aperture, the blades move and the entrance hole of the lens either increases in circumference or decreases in circumference. The smaller the hole, the less light can get to the sensor, so the darker your image will be. The larger the hole, the more light can get to the sensor and the brighter your image will be.
. 10 A visualization of the progression of aperture. f value vs entrance hole size. Cite
The graphic above will help you visualize the numbers associated with each f – value. The larger the number, the larger the area the aperture blades of the lens take up, the smaller the hole and the less amount of light can get into the sensor. The smaller the number, the smaller the area the aperture blades take up, the larger the entrance hole, and more light can get into the sensor through the lens.
The Effect of Aperture:
Now you know how adjusting the aperture affects the light the sensor is exposed to. What is the effect of aperture on the photo? Aperture controls the depth of field of an image. This means how in focus or out of focus the background is in an image. A large f value (f8 – f22) will keep the background in focus while a small f value (f1.8 – f2.8) will blow out the background but keep the subject in focus.
. 11 Great Smoky Mountains ISO 100- f10- 1/80
With this shot, I set my aperture to f10. As you can see, both the background and foreground are in focus. The entrance is smaller allowing for more focus and a greater depth of field. We often squint our eyes to focus on something far away. The entrance hole of the lens also “squints” to focus on something far away. I used the other settings to adjust for exposure. At f10, the entrance hole will be smaller, so less light can go in and affect the sensor (we squint our eyes in bright sunlight to see better), so I adjusted the shutter speed down to 1/80th (opposed to a normal 1/100th) to keep the shutter open longer and allow for more light to come in in terms of time.
. 12 Self Portrait ISO 100-f1.8- 1/2000
On the contrary, take this self- portrait I took at f1.8. Because the entrance hole created by the hole created by the blades is so large, the depth of is very shallow. The lens only focuses on what is in the foreground and blows out everything in the background. This is how photographers get that blurry background but sharp foreground look. Because the hole is so large at f1.8, I had to decrease the amount of time the shutter stayed open to mitigate how much light the sensor received so I could properly expose the image. As a result, the shutter speed is 1/2000th of a second. When it gets dark, our pupils dilate to allow in more light. The same happens when you lower the f stop on a lens.
Implementing Aperture: When to Adjust and Prioritize Aperture
Adjusting aperture is prioritized when you want to control the depth of field in a shot. If you’re taking a landscape, usually, f8 or greater. If you’re taking a portrait or want subject isolation, f1.4-f2.8 is fine. Then, once you set the aperture, adjust ISO and shutter speed to compensate for the light.
Note: the lowest f value you can shoot in is limited by your lens. A lens that can go down to a value like 1.4 or 1.8 is fast because you can then you can have a faster shutter speed as the aperture compensates for the light. A lens that can only go down to f4.5 would be considered slow because you wouldn’t be able to have the same fast shutter speed and properly exposed photo. More on lenses in another post.
. 13 Graphic of aperture and its effects on the photo and the light
In the graphic above, a higher f stop means a greater depth of field (because of a smaller entrance hole). A high f stop yields an image with a sharp background but also limits light, an issue that must be remedied by adjusting either the shutter speed or ISO. A lower f stop means more light reaches the sensor (because of a larger entrance hole,) and a shallower depth of field. This yields an image with a blurry background, good subject isolation, but a brighter image that needs to be toned down by adjusting either the shutter speed or ISO.
ISO
Understanding ISO and its Effect on Light:
The final setting to tweak on the exposure triangle is ISO. ISO refers to the sensor’s sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the sensor will be at picking up light and the brighter the final image. The lower the ISO, the less sensitive to light the sensor will be and the darker the final image. There are no units associated with ISO. Rather, only numbers are assigned.
. 14 The Value of ISO as shown on the manual screen
In this example, the ISO is set to auto. While I know photographers who only shoot in Auto ISO, I personally like to control my sensor’s sensitivity.
The Effect of ISO:
ISO affects how sensitive the sensor in the camera is to light. It seems great! Upping ISO increases the brightness of the image and lowering ISO decreases the brightness. So, if the image is not properly exposed, why even bother tweaking the other settings for exposure compensation? That may be the question you’re asking yourself right now. While ISO is a quick fix for helping with an image’s exposure, there is a drawback to having a high ISO. This is called noise (or grain.) When you increase the ISO of an image, you introduce noise to the frame as shown below.
. 15 A low ISO image vs a high ISO image. Both are properly exposed to show the effect high ISO has. Cite
As you can see from above, a higher ISO introduces noise. As a rule of thumb, try to keep ISO as low as possible and only increase it when you can’t afford to change any of the other settings. Increasing ISO is ok. Grain isn’t the worst thing. Just try not to go pushing too far past ISO 1600. So, while ISO can be a quick fix, it should be only tweaked if none of the other settings can be changed. This means that either shutter speed can’t be decreased because it will introduce motion blur or aperture can’t be decreased for fear of the background getting out of focus.
Implementing ISO: When to Adjust and Prioritize ISO
I never prioritize ISO. I always set it to as low as possible and tweak all the other settings first. If, I cannot tweak aperture or shutter speed to correct the image exposure, then I increase ISO. Also, being a landscape photographer, I HATE increasing the ISO because I HATE the smallest amount of grain in my images. The most that I’ve pushed ISO to is ISO 800. If you’re in another discipline like portrait, increasing ISO can be fine. I personally like a bit of ISO in some portraits.
Note: ISO is not the devil. As much as landscape photographers dislike increasing ISO, it’s perfectly fine. Some cameras introduce more noise when increasing ISO up 1 stop than other cameras so keep that in mind. Outside on a sunny day, set the ISO to the lowest setting at first. For indoor shots, a good base ISO to set is 400.
. 16 Graphic of ISO and its effects on the photo and the light
The graphic shows a visualization of ISO. High ISO, more sensitive sensor, more light, more noise. Low ISO, less sensitive sensor, less light, less noise
Exposure Triangle Recap
Hopefully, you understand this graphic now. The exposure triangle and shooting is all a game of balance. You choose the effect you want, lock in that setting, and use the other settings to tweak how much light comes into the sensor to properly get the effect you want and properly expose the image you want. Now, to go over a few scenarios and how to manage settings for each one.
How I shoot and what to prioritize for certain shots:
Now, you should understand the exposure triangle. Literally all you do most of the time is just picking out what you want and then tweaking to properly expose the image. Now for a few examples.
Landscape:
Standard:
. 17 ISO 100- f8- 1/100
Do you understand what I’m saying in the caption now? Ok, so when I look at this image, it’s a simple landscape. Nothing too special that I must tweak for. I just make sure that everything is in focus and everything is properly exposed. So, I start by increase my aperture to at least f8. Now, I adjust the shutter speed. I’m using my 10-18mm wide angle for this at 12mm handheld. So, the slowest I can adjust my shutter speed (assuming I have a steady hand) is 1/24th. But, because it’s daytime and it’s bright, 1/00th is all I need to get the shot perfectly exposed. Click. ISO didn’t need to be touched to compensate for exposure and remained at the lowest value, meaning the lowest possible noise.
Long Exposure/ Night:
. 18 ISO 100-f11-30s
When I see this shot, I notice that it’s nighttime. Now, I could shoot this handheld but long exposures are super cool and handheld night shots are difficult. So, always bring a tripod. They unlock so many possibilities regarding the settings. Theoretically, if I did shoot this handheld, the lowest shutter speed I could set (since I’m using my 10mm) is 1/20th to avoid camera shake. At 1/20th, my image would still be too dark. I would lower my f stop to around f5.6 to try to get as much light in as possible. My lens can go down to 4.5 but I risk having the background out of focus. This would still leave the image dark and I would have to increase ISO to probably 800, introducing grain, and capturing still clouds and rough waters. With my tripod, I can rely on a super long shutter speed to get the proper exposure I want, without having to increase ISO at all. Plus, I can get smooth water and wispy clouds. As I did shoot this with a tripod, I didn’t touch ISO at all because I could just perpetually increase shutter speed to allow in more light. I wanted the water to be smooth and the clouds to be wispy, and show movement, and I found 30s did a good job. So, I set my shutter speed to 30 seconds and my aperture to f8. However, this still made the image a bit bright. Now, I could decrease shutter speed to perfectly expose the image. However, because I already decided to set my shutter speed to 30 seconds, I increase the f stop or aperture. So, in this instance, the aperture acted as a way of compensating for light instead of acting as a means of sharpness. It still sharpens the background upon increasing but that’s not the main reason we increased the f- stop. Next, take a look at my star shot.
. 19 ISO 800- f4.5- 10s (per frame)
This is an example of an increase in ISO at night on a tripod. The perceived shutter speed or exposure time is 5 hours, but I stacked 2000 individual 10 seconds exposures. Because the Earth moves, the stars move too. Using an app, I found out that my max exposure time for accurate stars (stars that don’t fade because of movement across the sky) was 10 seconds. So, I set my shutter to 10 seconds and locked it. I dialed my f stop all the way down to 4.5 (because that’s the lowest this lens can go down to. When shooting something so far away like stars, always go with your lowest f stop.) But, the image was still underexposed. Now, because I can’t increase shutter speed and aperture is at the lowest it can possibly go, my only other option is to increase ISO. I had to increase ISO to 800 and even at ISO 800, the image looks fine. Pretty noiseless in the stars.
Portrait:
Standard:
. 20 ISO 100- f1.8-1/2000th
Look back at this self-portrait. When taking portraits, we love that subject isolation, the shallow depth of field, and the bokeh in the background. To achieve this, always set the aperture low. For this image, I was using my 50mm. I set my aperture to 1.8. However, because the entrance hole is large at 1.8 and the sun was really bright, the image was overexposed. So, I took my shutter speed and increased it to 1/2000 to compensate for how much light the sensor was getting exposed to. Not only did shutter speed help compensate for light, but it would also help with stability (if the camera was handheld) and freeze any movement I made.
Action:
. 21 ISO 400- f2.8- 1/1000th
Look at this action shot of Snap Boogie. He’s dancing and moving quickly. So, shutter speed is prioritized to freeze time. Again, the rule of thumb is 1/800 or greater for action shots. For this one, I didn’t want to go below 1/1000th for fear of motion blur. And even at 1/1000th, part of his foot is blurred so it’s not the cleanest of shots. So, my shutter speed is set 1/1000th. Any lower and I risk major motion blur. I set my aperture to f2.8 because I want subject isolation, but I don’t set it too low because I don’t want autofocus to miss. If the f stop is set too low, sometimes autofocus has a hard time distinguishing what to focus on just because the depth of field is so shallow. It can only focus on one thing at a time and everything else gets blurred so if it picks the wrong thing, that means trouble. Now, my settings are 1/1000th and f2.8. However, the photo is still a bit dark, and I don’t want to decrease either setting to let in more light. So, I up ISO to 400 and my settings are ISO 400-f2.8-1/1000th.
Other Settings in Manual Mode:
We’ve covered the most important 3 settings on the manual screen, now I’m going to show you everything else that could be useful on the manual screen.
. 22 The meter as shown on the manual mode screen
This is the meter. This tells you how over exposed or underexposed your photo is. A perfectly exposed photo is taken when the exposure meter is at zero. However, the meter’s is only right most of the time so take the reading with a grain of salt but let it be a guide. If you want to be a real pro, you look at the meter inside the viewfinder instead of the meter on this screen. You could change how the camera reads the meter. But, the default setting for the meter does a pretty good job of estimating exposure. And, you can just fix the exposure in post later. When in doubt, shoot underexposed instead of overexposed because you can recover shadows data much better than highlights data.
. 23 White balance
This tells you the white balance of your shot. I set it to auto because you can change it in Lightroom if you shoot in raw.
. 24 Drive Mode
This displays your drive mode. It tells you if you are in single shot, continuous shooting, or on a timer. If you’re in single shot, it’s like shooting semi-automatic. You must press down on the shutter button again to take a shot. If you’re in continuous, you can take bursts by holding down the shutter button. This is great for taking action shots and getting multiple frames in a short amount of time. If you are in timer mode, it sets your camera on a delay before taking a shot when you press the button.
. 25 File format
This displays the format of the digital file. Raw is what all pros shoot in. It holds the most photo data and is the best to work with when editing. Also, the white balance can be changed in a RAW file. The only downside is you can’t open the file in a standard photo viewer. Only Lightroom, Photoshop, or something of that equivalent. If you’re not going to edit your photo and then export it as a jpg, I recommend shooting in jpg + RAW (what this screen is displaying) so you can come back and edit when you do learn basic editing, which will be my next post in 2 weeks.
Note: Raw files contain the most data and as a result, takes up the most data. Raw files can range from 10mb to 50mb per image.
. 26 Autofocus mode
This shows the autofocus mode of the camera. There are 3 options. ONE SHOT, AI SERVO, and AI FOCUS. ONE SHOT is used when shooting stationary objects. So, still life or landscape. AI SERVO is used when shooting a moving object. So, action shots. AI FOCUS is used when shooting an object that might move. So, models or animals staying still with the potential to move.
Everything else on this screen doesn’t really matter. You can tweak most everything else in post processing. See, that wasn’t so bad. However, the pros don’t look at this screen. We look into the viewfinder for our information.
Looking Through the Viewfinder: Anti-Chimping
Now you understand everything you need to know on the manual mode page. So, after setting your autofocus setting, you drive mode, and your file type, it’s time to look into the viewfinder and shoot. If you don’t know, the optical viewfinder of a DSLR provides so much information. From all 3 settings of the exposure triangle to focus points to your meter, there’s really no need to ever look at the LCD screen of a camera until you’re done shooting.
. 27 The Optical Viewfinder Screen. Cite
This is the typical view when looking through the viewfinder. Up top are all your focus points. Then, down reading from left to right, the battery, the mode you’re in (this is in AV but yours would say M), the autofocus mode, the file type, the drive mode, and the metering mode (I never change.) Some viewfinders don’t have the top row of information, and that’s ok. You should’ve set those already. You’re more concerned with the settings in the exposure triangle. At the bottom are all your triangle settings. From shutter speed, aperture, the meter, and ISO, the viewfinder tells you everything you need to make sure your photo is properly exposed.
. 28 Shutter speed displayed in the optical viewfinder
This value to left of the meter is the shutter speed. In this case, the shutter speed is 1/250th (not 250s.) To denote seconds, the screen would use the “ mark. For example, if the 250 was replaced by 2”, it would mean the shutter speed would be 2 seconds.
. 29 Aperture displayed in the optical viewfinder
This value to the left of the meter represents the aperture. In this case, the aperture is f5.6. There is no f value in front when looking through the viewfinder. However, the f value is the only value with a decimal point.
. 30 meter displayed in the optical viewfinder
This is the meter. It can tell you whether your photo is properly exposed, underexposed, or overexposed before you take the shot. It’s not always 100% accurate but it does a decent job so use it as a guide.) The pointer hitting the tick means that the image will be perfectly exposed. Minus means an underexposed image and plus means overexposed image by stops of light.
. 31 ISO displayed in the viewfinder
This is the ISO of your image.
With so much information in the viewfinder itself, there is really no reason to take your eyes away from the viewfinder. To adjust these values, there are knobs and dials on your camera. Once you get familiar with camera operation, you can look in the viewfinder, find the shot, and adjust the values to get the meter to 0 without ever leaving the viewfinder. If you constantly check to see if your photo turned out well, you might miss a shot. We call constantly looking down after taking a photo, chimping. Rather, trust your meter, know what settings to change to get the effect and exposure, and shoot through until the end. Then, you can check your images and select the best ones. Don’t be a chimp.
Conclusion:
A lot was talked about in this post. But to go over the key points,
Manual mode is all a game of balance. Getting the right effect + the correct exposure.
There are 3 settings in manual mode that make up the exposure triangle
Each setting controls a certain effect and affects how much light into the sensor
Shutter Speed:
Measured in seconds
Controls how long the shutter is open for and how much time the sensor is exposed to light.
The longer the shutter speed, the brighter the image and vice versa
Longer shutter speeds can create long exposures and light streaks while shorter shutter speeds can freeze time and create action shots
Aperture
Denoted by an f- value
Controls the aperture blades in a lens
The lower the f-value, the smaller the area the blades cover, the larger the entrance hole, the more light comes through, the brighter the image
The lower the f-value, the shallower the depth of field. Perfect for portraits and subject isolation
ISO:
No units
Measures the sensor’s sensitivity to light.
The higher the ISO, the more sensitive to light, the brighter the image, the more noise is introduced.
ISO is the last setting to tweak because of the noise
The optical viewfinder contains a ton of information and isn’t just a jumble of numbers
Trust in your meter
I hope you learned a lot from this post. While it may be a lot of information to take in all at once, I encourage you to break this down. Just know that manual mode is a balance and it’s only 3 settings. If you keep practicing, eventually you’ll be able to know exactly what you need to tweak and get your settings ready in mere seconds. Best of luck out there. Did I miss something? What did you think? Was it too difficult to understand? Leave your comments and feedback below!