Let’s shoot in Manual Settings and Manual Exposure.

What scares a new photographer more than the sticker price of a decent DSLR camera? Shooting in manual settings and manual exposure. Once you understand what key factors are involved and practice a lot, shooting in manual will come naturally. Your exposure is the amount of light (controlled by the aperture or f-stop of your camera lens) that is captured over a specific amount of time (controlled by the shutter speed of your camera shutter). Your ISO controls how much noise or grain is recorded on your images. ISO also influences your aperture and shutter speed choices. I often tell my beginner students to put your camera setting on Program. Position your camera to what you want to photograph. Depress the shutter and see what the camera is going to record your scene or take an image(check image info for camera exposure setting). For the next image, you change the camera setting to manual. Change your shutter speed and/or aperture to see what happens to your next image.

Keep moving the dials up and down so you change the exposure and see what your choices are capable of.

Understanding your camera’s metering system and the quality of light you are shooting in also helps with selecting your manual settings for the correct manual exposure. In addition to white balance, exposure compensation and steadiness of your hands, your manual exposure is unique combination of numbers, science and creativity.