I’d been shooting my D700 for several months before I learned how to switch it from Manual mode to one of the presets.

Should I feel sheepish over that? I’m feeling a little sheepish over that. But the only reason I didn’t know how to do it because 1.) D700s, unlike many DSLRs, don’t have the little symbol-covered knob to switch shooting modes, and 2.) I never went looking for it. As any photographer who’s been bitten by the bug will tell you, shooting full manual is the only way to really control your shots — and once you learn how to control your shots, why would you want to give that control back to your camera? When you want your picture to look a certain way, forget P mode, forget shooting aperture priority, and don’t be tempted to set your camera to Auto. Learn to make the most of your SLR or digital SLR camera, and you’ll be impressed with the results.

Since different cameras and camera manufacturers feature different types of controls for shooting manually (Nikon and Canon are quite literally opposites when it comes to the way some of the controls work), I’m not going to touch on the actual how-tos in this blog post. I just want to plant a seed for new SLR owners or longtime shooters who have wanted to learn more about operating their cameras but just haven’t gotten around to it. I learned the  only way you really can: Memorizing the fundamentals of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and metering, and then practicing for hours and hours and weeks and weeks and months and months on end. Honestly, it takes a long time to get the hang of shooting manually, and even longer for it to become second nature so you can make adjustments on the fly and under pressure. Once you do, though, you’ll reap the benefit in the form of pictures you’ll not only like better, but love shooting.

For a few quick examples of why having control over your own image trumps letting the camera make the calls, here are a few side-by-sides of pictures I just shot around my house the other morning — in manual, controlling all the camera’s settings on the left, and in P mode, letting the camera dictate some my settings, on the right. All images are straight out of camera with zero postprocessing. Left: f/1.4, 1/500 second. Right: f/4, 1/80 second. Since my goal for this picture was to put the emphasis on the stark black wick rising from white, stalactite-like wax drippings, the wider aperture I could select in manual mode let me achieve a shallow depth of field, enhancing a close study of the wax by making everything else a watercolor blur. In P mode, to get the proper exposure for the shot on the right, the camera bumped my aperture to f/4, and it’s perfectly acceptable; but with the detail still clearly visible on the candelabra, my eye is drawn away from the wax, following the straight line down to the table, so the picture on the right doesn’t accomplish what I wanted.
Left: f/1.4, 1/125 second. Right: f/1.4, 1/200 second. The wider open your aperture, the more your picture will have a soft, inviting glow and a bright, airy feel — usually. That’s why I love shooting with my aperture at f/1.4. But when I tried changing it to f/1.4 in P mode for this picture, it increased my shutter speed to 1/200 second, which resulted in a darker, harder, less pleasing image than the one with the slightly slower shutter speed. In those lighting conditions and for that shot, 1/200 of a second was as slow as P mode would let me shoot when I had my aperture at the desired f/1.4.Left: f/1.4, 1/320 second. Right f/4, 1/60 second. Portraits are where shooting in manual mode really shines — the earlier pictures were just objects, but even in portraits of animals, you see that beautiful wide-open glow, something you simply cannot get most of the time in P mode (see above picture’s explanation about aperture/shutter speed correlation).

Conclusion: P mode generally produces perfectly acceptable pictures — but those pictures often aren’t as good as they could be.

That’s all I’ve got today. No tricks on ways to speed the learning process (practice, practice, practice!). Just a few pictures that I hope will spark your interest in producing photographs that look the way you want them to, and in learning to use your camera more fully. Have fun!

~ Laura