Hello friends. Before starting this post, let me assume that you could muster the courage of reading through my long and rather boring post about buying a new camera (I know its too much to assume, but whats wrong in hoping ;) ). So, inspired by my post (and almost 100s of similar articles & blogs), lets assume (here we go again!!!) you have bought a new ILC. May be a DSLR, going by the market sentiment.
So congratulations on getting the new DSLR camera. Open the box carefully, take out the camera with that smug smile on your face, fondle it like a new born baby and carefully take out the other accessories that came with it. Insert the Memory Card and the batteries. Now switch it on to see it coming to life for the first time. Now take the first shot with this baby. But wait!!! There are so many dials and buttons here!! Which one am I supposed to press? How to activate the flash? How do I auto-focus? Then the instruction manual comes handy. I understand which button does what. I also learn the functions of the command wheel, learn how to zoom by twisting the zoom ring on the lens, perhaps even take a shot or two using the Auto mode on your camera. And everything ends there itself. Oh its so confusing!! Why did I buy it in the first place? My old P&S camera was so simple!!!
Well the paragraph above depicts exactly my situation when I bought my Nikon D3100. I used to have a Kodak C195 previously and operating that camera was a piece of cake. But now I have a DSLR, and have no idea what I am doing. Then came the hard part. Searched to and fro the internet for bits and pieces of information about how to operate my DSLR. After spending a long time, wasting much of my bandwidth on numerous Youtube videos, I got a fair idea of how to take photo in Manual Mode and what factors are to be kept in mind. Here I am going to share exactly what I gathered from everything. If I err somewhere please let me know. I will be more than happy to rectify myself.
First things first, why do you need to shoot in manual mode when you have auto mode? A very valid question indeed. In auto mode, the camera decides the best settings for your camera and you just click the photo. Basically it turns your DSLR into P&S but hey you have got the DSLR quality photos. Well the direct answer to this question is that the camera is not right every sngle time. Suppose you want to take a picture of a person while blurring his/her background completely, like this example-
Or suppose you want to take a picture of a waterfall and you want to make the water silky like those calender shots. Something like this-
So congratulations on getting the new DSLR camera. Open the box carefully, take out the camera with that smug smile on your face, fondle it like a new born baby and carefully take out the other accessories that came with it. Insert the Memory Card and the batteries. Now switch it on to see it coming to life for the first time. Now take the first shot with this baby. But wait!!! There are so many dials and buttons here!! Which one am I supposed to press? How to activate the flash? How do I auto-focus? Then the instruction manual comes handy. I understand which button does what. I also learn the functions of the command wheel, learn how to zoom by twisting the zoom ring on the lens, perhaps even take a shot or two using the Auto mode on your camera. And everything ends there itself. Oh its so confusing!! Why did I buy it in the first place? My old P&S camera was so simple!!!
Well the paragraph above depicts exactly my situation when I bought my Nikon D3100. I used to have a Kodak C195 previously and operating that camera was a piece of cake. But now I have a DSLR, and have no idea what I am doing. Then came the hard part. Searched to and fro the internet for bits and pieces of information about how to operate my DSLR. After spending a long time, wasting much of my bandwidth on numerous Youtube videos, I got a fair idea of how to take photo in Manual Mode and what factors are to be kept in mind. Here I am going to share exactly what I gathered from everything. If I err somewhere please let me know. I will be more than happy to rectify myself.
First things first, why do you need to shoot in manual mode when you have auto mode? A very valid question indeed. In auto mode, the camera decides the best settings for your camera and you just click the photo. Basically it turns your DSLR into P&S but hey you have got the DSLR quality photos. Well the direct answer to this question is that the camera is not right every sngle time. Suppose you want to take a picture of a person while blurring his/her background completely, like this example-
Or suppose you want to take a picture of a waterfall and you want to make the water silky like those calender shots. Something like this-
(Image credit- Subhadip Mukherjee of https://subhadipindia.wordpress.com/)
then your love affair with auto mode ends there. The camera wont understand your needs and will give you flat and boring pictures. Then you will have to adopt to manual settings. And for that, you need to master the "EXPOSURE TRIANGLE" For that you need to go to a small but highly secretive clan named "PP" (Acronym for Professional Photographers) and be their apprentice for years before learning this secret skill.
Just Joking. You don't need to do anything like that. You just have to grasp three concepts-
1. Shutter Speed.
2. Aperture.
3. ISO.
If you understand what are these things and how they control a photo then you have learned the most important part of digital photography because almost all the cool effects on photos that you see (Except the Photoshopped ones) are achieved by tweaking these elements. Each of them are discussed in detail here with their effects and side effects on a photo.
Shutter Speed-
Shutter speed is the time during which the shutter opens to allow light to fall on the sensor. It is also known as 'Exposure time' or just 'Exposure'. Generally in DSLRs this time varies from 4000th of a Second to 30 seconds. There is also a bulb mode which allows for even longer exposures. In Bulb mode, until you release the shutter, the shutter stays open. In some cameras it is done by pressing the shutter twice while in other cameras you press and hold the shutter to continue the exposure. So naturally the longer the duration, the brighter the image and the shorter the duration the darker the image. So by increasing/ decreasing the shutter speed you control the brightness of your picture. The slower the brighter, the faster the darker.
However there is a side effect to shutter speed and that side effect is motion blur. When the shutter opens for a very short duration (like say 100th of a second), anything in motion just freezes in the picture. But when the shutter opens for a long time, things which are not constant and in motion get blurry. That's exactly how the picture of waterfall was taken in the above picture. Since the water was cascading at a very high speed, the image sensor captured the motion instead of single water droplets. Rember the following two points-
a) Shorter Shutter Speed= Darker Image + Freeze Frame
b) Longer Shutter Speed= Brighter Image + Motion Blur
Aperture
The aperture is how wide the opening in your lens is. Sometimes its also called the f- number. The more wide the opening, the more light will come in and the more bright the picture will be and vice-versa.
Look at the following examples-
Shutter Speed- 1/25
ISO- 100
Aperture- f 3.5
Shutter Speed- 1/25
ISO- 100
Aperture- f 8
Shutter Speed- 1/25
ISO- 100
Aperture- f 14
As you can see, just by changing the aperture while keeping the other factors constant, you can increase/decrease the amount of light in your picture.
But as I said, there is also a side effect and that side effect is known as 'Depth of field'. Without going into technical jargons, you can simply say that it means how deep or shallow your plane of focus is. The following examples will help in your understanding-
 |
| Taken at f 1.8 |
 |
| Taken at f 14 |
In both the cases I focused on the lens. Notice how in the first picture only the lens is in focus while the background is completely blurry and in the second picture both the lens and the background are in focus. That is depth of field. When the f number is small (like f1.8, 2,3.5 etc) the opening of the lens is wide, letting in more light, but making your depth of field shallow. When the f number is large (like f 14,18,22 etc), the lens opening is small, letting in less light, but making your depth of field deep, allowing you to capture more details in a single shot. The portrait at the beginning of this post was shot with a very shallow depth of field, thats why only the person is in focus and everything else in the background is blurry. This effect is also known as 'Bokeh'. Similarly while shooting landscape pictures, you have to select large f numbers to keep everything sharp and in focus. If you can grasp this concept properly, you can use your imagination and take wonderful photos using this small trick.
So, to sum it up, remember the following two lines-
A higher f- number (like f22)= Less opening= Less light + Deep depth of field.
A lower f- number(like f3.5)= More opening= More Light + Shallow depth of field.
Notice the overall grain in the picture? Thats what I am talking about. Sometimes photographers use noise to add artistic touch to the picture but thats very rare and most of the time you would like to keep noise level minimum for your pictures. So, remember this as a thum-rule-
Always use lowest ISO possible in every scenarion.
However that being said, in certain situations you have to use higher ISO to compensate for the lower light. Moreover, most modern cameras have very useful noise cancellation feature which comes very handy in those situations. But still using the lowest possible ISO in every particular situation is the best idea.
ISO
After Shutter Speed and Aperture, the third most important thing is ISO. Don't ask me the abbreviation as I don't know it (You may google it though! I didn't, cause I am lazy!!). But simply speaking, ISO is the image sensors sensitivity towards light. A Lower ISO (Like ISO 50, 100 etc) means that in low light condition, the pictures will be very dark while a Higher ISO (Like ISO 800,1000.5000 etc) means the camera becomes sensitive to light and low light pictures come brighter.
Now I know what you are thinking. "Thats great. I will use the highest possible ISO in my camera always and will ramp up the f- number to reduce the amount of light". Well, technically that is possible, but practically not. Because just like the other two, ISO also comes with its own side effect and that is known as "NOISE".
Noise may be defined as colour grain which destroys the colour and fine detail of a picture. Mind it, this is a very crude definition, but this will do for understanding purpose. Look at the following picture-
 |
| Image credit- Wikipedia |
Notice the overall grain in the picture? Thats what I am talking about. Sometimes photographers use noise to add artistic touch to the picture but thats very rare and most of the time you would like to keep noise level minimum for your pictures. So, remember this as a thum-rule-
Always use lowest ISO possible in every scenarion.
However that being said, in certain situations you have to use higher ISO to compensate for the lower light. Moreover, most modern cameras have very useful noise cancellation feature which comes very handy in those situations. But still using the lowest possible ISO in every particular situation is the best idea.
To help you in managing perfect exposure, there is an in-built light meter in your camera that is incredibly handy. When you look through the viewfinder, you will find the lightmeter in the bottom.
Head to this post for more detail on that.
So, there you go. The basics have been explained in a very simple language for starters. Just remember, in order to take a perfect picture in Manual mode, all you really need is to keep in mind all these three factors. Its like a three legged table. All the three legs need to be equal or else the table will be wobbly. So go ahead and experiment. The pictures will not come perfect at first, but as you keep on trying, you will keep on getting better. Then one time will come when you will not want to shoot in auto mode anymore. So go ahead, Happy Shooting!! :)
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