Capture your creative vision by taking back control of exposure, focusing, white balance and more –Dan Mold shows you how
If you want to unlock the creative potential of your camera, then I Manual mode is the way to go. While the semi-automatic Aperture and Shutter Priority modes can help out by making some of the core exposure settings, Manual mode takes off the stabilisers so that getting the settings right for total creative freedom is completely up to you. But this extra power comes with responsibility, and it will be down to you if the image doesn’t come out correctly. There are occasions when shooting in Manual mode is the only option, such as shooting with flash – if you use a semi-automatic mode the camera will try to base the exposure on the natural light, without taking into account the bright and brief burst of light when the flash is fired.
Over the following pages, we will cover all the core parameters that affect exposure and how they work in harmony, which will hopefully make understanding it all less daunting. We will run through some tips and tricks when using Manual exposure mode, how to take control of colours and explain the difference between raw and jpeg formats. Let’s get to it!
1 MASTER MANUAL MODE UNDERSTAND THE EXPOSURE TRIANGLE
An exposure can be boiled down to three core parameters that A determine how well exposed the scene is, though changing each has its own trade-offs. The three settings are shutter speed, which determines how long the shutter is open: a fast shutter speed will freeze motion still but could result in an underexposed image if there isn’t enough light, while extending the shutter speed could leave enough time for movement in your hands or moving elements such as the sky or people to become blurry.
The aperture is an opening inside of the lens that can be opened or closed to restrict the light flow, though this setting also directly affects your depth of field (how much of your scene is in sharp focus). A wide aperture will flood the camera sensor with loads of light enabling well-exposed images at faster shutter speeds, but may only result in a thin slice of your image being in sharp focus. Lastly, the ISO value is like the gain control on an audio amplifier, turning it up makes the sensor more sensitive to light, but at the cost of distortion ��
