Manual Mode - Better Photos... Now!

Have you ever taken a photo, looked at it and wondered, "What was my camera thinking?" Instead of a photo that captures the glorious light that's falling on your subject, you get a photo in which everything is underexposed, except for the windshield of the car in the background, which is perfectly exposed. Contrary to popular belief, DSLRs are not that smart and can easily be fooled by a variety of lighting conditions. Fortunately, with a little practice and common sense, you can take great photos without relying on your camera to figure out the exposure.

When you set your camera to aperture priority or shutter priority mode, your camera is still calling the shots when it comes to deciding the proper exposure. By setting your camera to manual mode, you take complete control over the exposure of your photos. Be forewarned: With great power comes great responsibility. If you're not careful, you'll have lots of under or over-exposed photos. If you change lighting conditions, like walking from indoors to outdoors, you need to change your settings. Be aware of your surroundings, though, and you'll be rewarded with consistent exposures and more creative control than you ever imagined possible!

To get started shooting in manual mode, set your camera to that big, intimidating M. Now you're in control of the aperture and shutter speed. Remember, your aperture controls the amount of light that enters your camera while shutter speed controls how long your sensor is exposed to that light. If your photo is under-exposed, you can either decrease your shutter speed or use a larger aperture (smaller f/number). If your photo is over-exposed, you can either increase your shutter speed or use a smaller aperture (larger f/number).

Now that you're in manual mode, how are you going to take better photos than your camera? Let's say you're standing on the street and your subject is standing on the sidewalk in some beautiful light. Unfortunately, that light is also glaring off of a car windshield behind your subject and is tricking your camera's meter. You take a photo and notice that it is under-exposed. No problem! Just decrease the shutter speed to let in more light. Sure, the windshield is going to blown out and over-exposed, but now your subject will be properly exposed. If you were using aperture or shutter-priority mode, changing the aperture or shutter speed would still give you an under-exposed image, because as far as the camera is concerned the scene hasn't changed. Using manual mode, you override the camera's judgement and get the exposure you want!

Here are a few examples of shooting in manual mode versus shooting in aperture priority mode.  These are for demonstration purposes only, as they were test shots while I was setting my exposure.

The photo on the left was taken in aperture priority mode at f/4.  Because of the bright background, the camera thought it should be exposed for 1/800 of a second, which produces an underexposed image.  I switched to manual mode, set my camera to f/3.2 and 1/200 of a second, which gives the image on the right.  The background is blown out (the camera tried to tell me!), but I'm not shooting the background, I'm shooting the boy!

Although the photo on the right is nothing to write home about, with a little curves adjustment, we get something like you see below, which was taken at the exact same settings just a few seconds after the above photo on the right!

Now, go forth with your cameras set to M!

Read all of my DSLR tips here.