There will come a time in photography when you want more from your camera. When the automatic shooting modes begin to frustrate you, to limit what you can achieve. Or, you may just be curious at what lies beyond those auto shooting modes.
At that point, you will want to flip the camera into manual and enter a whole new world.
But, what is manual, what do the settings mean, and how on earth do you know how to use it?
What is manual mode?
If you have a DSLR or perhaps a mirrorless camera, it is likely to have a manual mode on it. It may be indicated by the letter M wherever it is you select your mode.
One you’re in manual, it allows you to change all of the camera settings without it automatically then altering something else. So, if you’re on shutter priority for example, if you change what that minimum shutter speed is, the camera will adjust ISO or aperture to ensure the photo is still exposed correctly, or near to it.
In manual, that won’t happen. You set the shutter, but you will also need to set the aperture and ISO yourself.
What does all of that mean, you may be asking?
Don’t worry, it’s super simple.
What is shutter speed?
Shutter speed – this is the number that looks like this 1/100, 1/1000, etc. This is how fast the shutter on your camera opens and closes, so how fast it captures the image. How does this impact photos? Well, imagine you are shooting a river flowing and you want that nice misty, cloudy effect you see – well, you need a slower shutter speed for that so the detail of what’s moving quickly (the water) blurs,.
If you are shooting fast-moving sports, a race care for example, then you need that shutter speed really high and quick so that the car is frozen in the photo with all of that detail. Same for any action sports.
What is ISO?
ISO – this is your camera’s sensitivity to light. In short, if you’re shooting on a really bright sunny day, then that ISO needs to be low – less sensntive to light as there is plenty of light to help expose the image. If you’re shooiting at night, then that’s gonna need to be pretty high so that the camera is more sensitive to the light and so brightens your photo. In doing so, it will introduce grain into your image, what’s known as “noise”.
What is aperture?
Finally, the aperture. This is the size of the opening in your lens when the camera takes a photo. You can use aperture to help exposure in different lights, and to impact things such as the depth of field. The smaller the f-number the larger the aperture – more light gets in, shallower depth of field. At the opposite end, less light gets in, deeper depth of field.
That’s the simplest way to explain those three key terms. And here’s why you need to know…because shooting on manual essentially comes down to knowing and understanding the exposure triangle.
The exposure triangle explained
Essentially, the exposure triangle is about a balance. Getting the balance of those three settings we just discussed just right so that you get the perfectly exposed photo.
Now, the type of photo you want to shoot, the conditions you’re shooting in and some other factors will impact at least one of these.
Here is the exposure triangle – I have made this available to download as a PDF, so check the link below the image.
Download Exposure Triangle as PDF by clicking this link
Each side of the triangle refers to one of the settings we talked about, shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
Let’s talk real world example
So, I shoot a lot of professional football., And yes, I love shooting on manual for that whenever I can, which is almost every game.
Football, or soccer as it is known in some parts of the world, is a fast-moving action sport. In order to get nice sharp action photos, I need a fast shutter speed. I will try to use 1/1000 as a lowest starting point generally speaking – there are instances when it needs to be lower, but let’s not get into that here.
Now, if I have a fast shutter speed, that will darken the image because less light is getting in to the sensor.
So, I then adjust the aperture and ISO to help with that.
Normally my aperture will be 2.8 or 3.2. That lets lots of light in, while also giving sports action shots a lovely bit of bokeh – that is the creamy, blurry background around the subject.
Once that is set, I then set the ISO to whatever it needs to be to then expose that photo correctly. Depending on the conditions, that ISO can be just about anything.
I hope that makes sense, I remember starting out in photography and being quite intimidated by what the exposure triangle was, and it’s actually really simple when you give yourself a little bit of time to read about it, understand it and, the crucial part, practising the impact of it yourself.
So, have the confidence to knock your camera into manual mode and go and enjoy shooting!