I used to program my camera to only shoot in manual mode, everything to include ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and even the white balance.
There are three parts to the exposure triangle: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. The ISO is the sensitivity of light collected by the sensor, the shutter speed is how quickly the shutter opens and closes, and the aperture is how much light is let in. There's a bit more to each, but I won't get too technical at this moment.
To take a photo in all manual that has the perfect exposure takes a lot of time and practice as multiple variables must be taken into consideration. This may be fine where you have full control of your environment, such as lighting, in a studio. However, lighting is constantly changing outdoors so adjustments need to be made on the fly.
Example: To take this photo of an airplane where the registration number is readable, I needed to have a shutter speed of 1/1250th of a second. However, that would make my photo too dark as I wanted a larger depth of field to capture the full airplane too, having an f-stop of 8. With an f-stop of 8, my photo would be severely underexposed, looking like nighttime, had I not manually bumped the ISO from 100 to 200.
As I was in the perfect location, all my programmed settings could be locked in—plane after plane—getting the perfect exposure each time. Granted, I might've increased my shutter a bit more and bumped ISO as it does appear a tad blurry and I wanted to lock the action in more; I will have to do another test on this another day.
When you don't have control over your shooting, such as street photography, The Slanted Lens makes a good argument of being in aperture priority, shutter priority, or auto ISO so that you can still be in control of your shots to an extent as you are controlling 2 points on the exposure triangle at any given time for the perfect shot every time—it's like driving an auto-manual car (slapstick or paddles) so you are given the choice to drive in the gear you want, easier.
After reading this and watching the above video, what do you think about manual vs. semi-manual, vs full auto? Take the poll and tell us how you shoot your photos below!
As far as it goes for me, I think I will be going to semi-manual more often as I do a lot of street shots and often miss my subject in the desired composition I wanted due to not being able to dial in all 3 settings quick enough—maybe when I go RF and get a control ring around the glass I can dial in quicker?
There are three parts to the exposure triangle: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. The ISO is the sensitivity of light collected by the sensor, the shutter speed is how quickly the shutter opens and closes, and the aperture is how much light is let in. There's a bit more to each, but I won't get too technical at this moment.
To take a photo in all manual that has the perfect exposure takes a lot of time and practice as multiple variables must be taken into consideration. This may be fine where you have full control of your environment, such as lighting, in a studio. However, lighting is constantly changing outdoors so adjustments need to be made on the fly.
Example: To take this photo of an airplane where the registration number is readable, I needed to have a shutter speed of 1/1250th of a second. However, that would make my photo too dark as I wanted a larger depth of field to capture the full airplane too, having an f-stop of 8. With an f-stop of 8, my photo would be severely underexposed, looking like nighttime, had I not manually bumped the ISO from 100 to 200.
As I was in the perfect location, all my programmed settings could be locked in—plane after plane—getting the perfect exposure each time. Granted, I might've increased my shutter a bit more and bumped ISO as it does appear a tad blurry and I wanted to lock the action in more; I will have to do another test on this another day.
When you don't have control over your shooting, such as street photography, The Slanted Lens makes a good argument of being in aperture priority, shutter priority, or auto ISO so that you can still be in control of your shots to an extent as you are controlling 2 points on the exposure triangle at any given time for the perfect shot every time—it's like driving an auto-manual car (slapstick or paddles) so you are given the choice to drive in the gear you want, easier.
After reading this and watching the above video, what do you think about manual vs. semi-manual, vs full auto? Take the poll and tell us how you shoot your photos below!
As far as it goes for me, I think I will be going to semi-manual more often as I do a lot of street shots and often miss my subject in the desired composition I wanted due to not being able to dial in all 3 settings quick enough—maybe when I go RF and get a control ring around the glass I can dial in quicker?
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of Okinawa.Org.
