Why use manual mode?

Tim, you are making a good argument for different metering methods, but not for exposure setting options. Two halves of the same coin, but not the same thing ;)

Just as an experiment, I took a snap of a pile of junk on my desk. Some black lenses and flash guns (ie groom) against a generally even toned background. The correct exposure is 1/15sec at f/4, and evaluative suggested 1/8sec and centre-weighted said 1/4sec - 1.0 and 2.0 stops out respectively.

I then covered black items with a sheet of white paper (bride) and evaluative changed its mind to 1/50sec at f/4, and centre-weighted went to 1/125sec - 1.6 and 3.0 stops out.

Of course, YMMV but in this case evaluative was within a range of 1-1.6 stops out which I think is a manageable range for chimping and compensation, but centre-weighted was much further adrift at 2-3 stops out. Heaven knows where spot would have put them both - well off the scale.

In other words, in terms of metering mode, what works best for me is to get close with evaluative and chimp/compensate to get it right. I find that a better way of working than spot metering off a clean white tone, if there is one, and leaving it at that.
 
HoppyUK said:
if you think of manual as 'set & lock' then it makes more sense. I use it a lot for that.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Fundamentally that's what it's about.

Plus you can set an exposure beyond the limits of your EC range.

Plus you can set an exposure through means other than metering, such as inputting settings based on a derivative of Sunny 16 or Moony 11.

Plus you can input settings from an incident light meter.

Plus you can set a correct exposure for use with manual off camera flash.
 
Last edited:
Deleted. It was just a bit of a brain dump that strayed off topic. Post #42 will suffice as a perfect summation of the value of manual exposure as I see it. Metering is quite a separate matter.

However, let's not forget that the major problem with autoexposure is that it keeps remetering your scene and adjusting your exposure, whether you want it to or not. Metering mode is irrelevant. The problem is that it changes settings you might well not want to have changed..... every time you press the damn shutter button. That's too often. It's a PITA. Then you have to figure out just how far wrong it got its guess. Double whammy.
 
Last edited:
tdodd said:
But Richard, you understand the zone system, do you not? I'm sure you know how and where to place your tones within a +/-3 stop range. If you have something white in your scene where do you want to place that white? How white do you want it to be? If you're shooting raw how white can you afford to make it? It's probably going to be somewhere around the +2 mark, possibly up to +3 even, depending on how white it is and how you wish to handle the dynamic range of the scene. You could even push a little higher if you're feeling brave. Lightroom recovery can do a pretty nice job on a little nudge into clipping.

Expose for the highlights, develop for the shadows. That's the digital mantra for exposure - No?

If you have no highlight tones at all then you have the luxury of spare DR to play with. You can boost your exposure and then bring things down in post - if you want to. You can meter for the shadows instead and decide where you want to place them.

I've only got rudimentary knowledge of the zone system, but I've got enough knowledge to get me by. I may not be Ansel Adams, but shoving tones somewhere between -3 and +3 is not hard with a bit of experience/practice. Shuffling your histogram towards the right is easy. If you can spot meter your highlights you can get there in one hit. You just need to know what to aim for.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with any of that Tim. But judgement is required whichever way you do it with a 'difficult' subject. Personally, I have always found trying to spot meter off white quite difficult in practise. The in-camera spot area is too big, and there is usually quite a range of whites to choose from! If I did work like that, I would still chimp it to make sure. TBH, I'd rather start with an incident reading and then push that to the right of the histogram using blinkies (I like blinkies ;)).

All metering is gueswwork, whereas the LCD/histogram/blinkies is the real thing - a gift from the camera gods that wasn't available to us pre-digital. I really don't care that much how I meter a scene - I often just guess, and that might be in Av or manual. It's just a starting point, then chimp from there. Providing the starting point is close, I know how far the highlights are to clipping because I can see the histogram and the blinkies are giving me a very good fix on exactly what's what. I find it the quickest and easiest way of working. And ultimately, definitely the most accurate.

I'm also not that keen on the Zone System with digital. Knowledge of tonal values is useful of course, but it's a method for exposing negative film which does not behave in the same way at all. Digital is more like slide film, but with more dynamic range and the opportunity to push in exposure and pull in post processing which is not available with slide film, so you can can reposition the highlights - sometimes a lot!

Edit: Re your edit and auto vs manual - ways of working, personal preference and circumstance. Thinking about it, I think that I tend to use auto plus comp on walkabout, and manual when I'm going to be taking more than a few shots of the same subject. Question of time/speed I guess really. Certainly no right or wrong.
 
Last edited:
tdodd said:
I shoot almost exclusively in manual mode and it serves me far better than any autoexposure mode.

Autoexposure modes rely on reading light reflected back from the subject/scene. Dark things don't reflect much light. Autoexposure modes think they should be brighter and will ramp up the exposure. Bright/light/white things should be bright/light/white. Autoexposure, left to its own devices will disagree. It thinks everything you point it at should be grey. It will underexpose a predominantly light scene - think snowy mountain for example.

If you rely on making reflected light readings and having the camera work out your exposure you will need to keep adjusting the exposure compensation every time the reflectivity of your subject/scene alters. That is hard work and quite difficult to do with perfect reliability from one shot to the next. Imagine you are shooting a wedding. First you shoot the bride in white on her own. Then you shoot the groom in his black tux, again on his own. Then you shoot the two of them together. Which exposure setting is correct for the three shots? Should each one be a different value or should they all be the same? Well, the answer is that they should all be the same. Manual exposure will let you set and lock the correct exposure for the lighting. Autoexposure will have you chasing your tail on that one.

With manual exposure you set the exposure to suit the light that is illuminating your subject/scene, not the light reflected back from it. That way black stays black, white stays white and grey stays grey. You can shoot hundreds of images under the same lighting and never have to make a single adjustment to exposure once it is set correctly.
Click to expand...

:thumbs: by far one of the most useful posts I've read in a while.
 
KIPAX said:
how do you people advocating full manual manage outside on a sunny windy cloudy day when no sooner have you setup the exposure the light changes... but you only have seconds to tkae the shot... sports or wildlife.. sorry but sat there missing the shot saying i only shoot manual would be nothing short of madness..
Click to expand...

35 years doing this - press, sports, you name it, UK and abroad - always on manual.
Never missed a shot yet because I had the wrong exposure settings (missed shots for other reasons, but that's a different matter...lol).

The 'thing' you're looking for to assist you in predicting the exposure changes is experience coupled with anticipation - a good photographer knows in advance what's going on with the light.
When I started out as a teenager in the news room, there were the fabled old guard photographers still using old speed-graphics, Leica III's and Nikon F's with no lightmeters - they just 'knew' what the exposure was by simply looking at the light. It was like a private joke with them - they'd walk into a room, look at the light and declare out loud the exposure needed. Newer guys (like me) with hand-held meters were constantly trying to catch them out, but invariably they were spot on to within 1/3 of a stop (well within film and development latitudes at that time).

Too much reliance on technology these days - what happens if your light-meter throws a wobbly? Still going to be working, assuming the camera still functions?
 
I've used manual since I got my first DSLR, I like ulimate control over how a photo looks, and leaving the camera to decide the exposure does not work for me for various reasons. I often like shooting into sunlight which messes up the exposure readings and produces an image darker than I'd like. Most importantly, I use old flashes fired by pocket wizards so there's no TTL metering and because the shutter speed and aperture are critical I don't want to risk fighting against the camera with exposure compensation when I can just stick it on manual and know I'm on the same setting each shot.
 
Try using Av or Tv with long exposures, either at night or with a 10 stop filter, and see if that works!
 
Thanks Tim. This is about as clear and perfect explanation of what using manual is about as one can possibly get. :clap::clap::thumbs:

tdodd said:
I shoot almost exclusively in manual mode and it serves me far better than any autoexposure mode.

Autoexposure modes rely on reading light reflected back from the subject/scene. Dark things don't reflect much light. Autoexposure modes think they should be brighter and will ramp up the exposure. Bright/light/white things should be bright/light/white. Autoexposure, left to its own devices will disagree. It thinks everything you point it at should be grey. It will underexpose a predominantly light scene - think snowy mountain for example.

If you rely on making reflected light readings and having the camera work out your exposure you will need to keep adjusting the exposure compensation every time the reflectivity of your subject/scene alters. That is hard work and quite difficult to do with perfect reliability from one shot to the next. Imagine you are shooting a wedding. First you shoot the bride in white on her own. Then you shoot the groom in his black tux, again on his own. Then you shoot the two of them together. Which exposure setting is correct for the three shots? Should each one be a different value or should they all be the same? Well, the answer is that they should all be the same. Manual exposure will let you set and lock the correct exposure for the lighting. Autoexposure will have you chasing your tail on that one.

With manual exposure you set the exposure to suit the light that is illuminating your subject/scene, not the light reflected back from it. That way black stays black, white stays white and grey stays grey. You can shoot hundreds of images under the same lighting and never have to make a single adjustment to exposure once it is set correctly.

Shooting with manual exposure puts you in control, not the camera.

Here's an example from three years ago when I shot 140 images in 40 minutes. The exposure is identical for every single one and perfect for every single one. The light didn't change at all and my exposure didn't need to. I locked it in manual mode and was free to concentrate on timing and composition. It didn't matter how much snow was in the scene or how much sky or what the subject was wearing etc. etc..

20110310_200611_000.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Maybe oddly, I jumped straight from shooting fully auto to shooting fully manual without passing through P,S and A modes (Nikon). It's only now, several months down the line that I have started using A and S modes. I can see that they all have their uses but I still think that if I knew I was going to be taking several shots in consistent lighting, I'd stick to manual. I like knowing that my exposure will not alter, no matter what else I do. A and S seem much more useful in situations where exposure may be changing constantly.

An example of which was a few days ago when I was taking some shots of seabirds that were landing on a stretch of river I was stood next to. They were coming in from all directions so one exposure wouldn't have worked. In that situation, I think I used S mode with a fast shutter speed and cranked the ISO up a little to allow the camera to alter the aperture sufficiently to expose correctly. I don't think I would have got many decent shots in manual mode.
 
If you want to talk birds coming in from different directions and with different backgrounds, how about this set of 16 images in 6 minutes.

20110311_134733_000.jpg


They were shot with manual exposure, all identical, and all unedited. The exposure for the bird is very consistent between frames, and nothing is being thrown off by the wildly varying backgrounds. Pale feather detail on the bird's head is not being blown out by dark, dark backgrounds forcing the exposure to be raised. If you were shooting here with autoexposure I'm intrigued to know which metering pattern you would use and how you would stay on top of the EC adjustments required to hold the exposure steady on the bird. I'm not saying these exposure are all perfect, but compared to what I imagine autoexposure would produce I reckon I'm on pretty solid ground with these. There is one shot only where the sky appears clipped, but (a) the sky has no detail to be recorded in the first place; (b) it can be pulled out of clipping by setting the highlight recovery slider to 10 (out of 100) in Lightroom. Hardly a sin.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to shoot stuff like this in anything other than manual. It would surely be a nightmare. For the Av/Tv gurus out there, how would you attempt to deal with an opportunity such as this?
 
Last edited:
tdodd said:
If you want to talk birds coming in from different directions and with different backgrounds, how about this set of 16 images in 6 minutes.

20110311_134733_000.jpg


They were shot with manual exposure, all identical, and all unedited. The exposure for the bird is very consistent between frames, and nothing is being thrown off by the wildly varying backgrounds. Pale feather detail on the bird's head is not being blown out by dark, dark backgrounds forcing the exposure to be raised. If you were shooting here with autoexposure I'm intrigued to know which metering pattern you would use and how you would stay on top of the EC adjustments required to hold the exposure steady on the bird. I'm not saying these exposure are all perfect, but compared to what I imagine autoexposure would produce I reckon I'm on pretty solid ground with these. There is one shot only where the sky appears clipped, but (a) the sky has no detail to be recorded in the first place; (b) it can be pulled out of clipping by setting the highlight recovery slider to 10 (out of 100) in Lightroom. Hardly a sin.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to shoot stuff like this in anything other than manual. It would surely be a nightmare. For the Av/Tv gurus out there, how would you attempt to deal with an opportunity such as this?
Click to expand...

That's interesting. In example that i mentioned, there were times when I was shooting into almost direct sunlight and times when I had my back to the sun. At the time, I was convince that this would mean my required exposure would be constantly changing but after your post I'm now not so sure.
 
gad-westy said:
That's interesting. In example that i mentioned, there were times when I was shooting into almost direct sunlight and times when I had my back to the sun. At the time, I was convince that this would mean my required exposure would be constantly changing but after your post I'm now not so sure.
Click to expand...

To be honest, in your situation I would simply have chosen not to shoot against the sun. It might cut out 50% of your opportunities, or a bit more, but I'd rather have my subjects lit well than shoot into their shadow side against a difficult sky. If that meant finding a better position from which to shoot then I'd rather take that approach than shoot against the light, at least for BIF.
 
tdodd said:
<snip>

I can't imagine why anyone would want to shoot stuff like this in anything other than manual. It would surely be a nightmare. For the Av/Tv gurus out there, how would you attempt to deal with an opportunity such as this?
Click to expand...

I don't know if I'm one of those Av gurus, but only a madman would attempt that in anything but manual :eek: It's surely a non-argument. You can quote any number of different situations where one mode is obviously better than another, but on the other hand, I can't remember the last time I photographed a bride and groom in the typical situation that is always cited, and I haven't been biffing for a while either ;)

However, I was on the beach at Lowestoft last week (it seemed like a good idea at the time) and it was, as usual, very windy and friggin freezing. The sun dipping between blue sky and cloud literally every second, changing three stops at a time. My subject was not waiting for the light and on manual I would either have missed every shot or everything ground to a standstill. On Av/evaluative with +1 comp I got lush exposure and I reckon the sand was about the same tone to within half a stop every time :thumbs:

Going back to the wedding situation, indoors at the reception or similar social situation, working the room with flash I challenge anybody using manual to balance the changing ambient and varying flash distance without missing shots. Events like that just change too fast and every shot is different.
 
Last edited:
Why use "Manual"?
Because I have recently purchased a little collection of old M42 lenses, and they have forced me to do pretty much everything manually, and I am loving it. It seems to have made me less lazy, more focussed (if you will forgive the pun), and I am starting to get more first time shots out of the camera.
 
I've just read this thread and I'm loving the benefits of going manual.

Thanks for the great examples tdodd.

It makes sense some photos are darker than others, however if you are taking lots of photos of the same subject you want the subject to remain the same throughout, not be getting darker or lighter. Obviously there are always examples of when not to, but it makes a lot of sense.

I've just tried manual on my D3100 and its really easy to use. Is this the right sort of idea...

Aim at the subject in a general setting and get the shutter speed and exposure set (you can use the +/- line to get it right can't you) and then leave it alone.

What happens if you want to change the shutter speed for whatever reason but want to keep the same exposure, are there a set of rules/chart that keep it the same (logic says there is) or is it best to set it once at the beginning?
 
KIPAX said:
Thats not an answer..

Football match.. light changing constantly...you ahve to get the pic of player scoring goals... it happens in seconds and you dont know when its going to happen and you ahve no idea of the lighting it changes so dramitcally with fast moving clouds with the sun high.. your camera is set to X settings.. then in an instant a player latches onto the ball to shoot.. and a cloud moves in front of the sun....

thats the challenge? yes it is... your answer is you enjoy it? i say you cant do it.. you have 1 second to change your settings and get the right exposure... camera can do that... you lose the shot.. but you go home knowing you lost it yourself? :)
Click to expand...

How do you think they managed before all singing all dancing cameras came along... manual, I did football and rugby for 2 years (through the seasons) with a full manual film camera, still got the shots, it doesn't take long to flick a shutter speed dial if you know what your doing.
 
Dale_d3100 said:
.......What happens if you want to change the shutter speed for whatever reason but want to keep the same exposure, are there a set of rules/chart that keep it the same (logic says there is) or is it best to set it once at the beginning?
Click to expand...

One stop either way doubles or halves the exposure, so if you go from say 1/250th of a second to 1/125th, doubling the amount of light let in by the shutter, you need to go down on the exposure by one stop to keep the overall amount of light the same.
 
swanseamale47 said:
How do you think they managed before all singing all dancing cameras came along... manual, I did football and rugby for 2 years (through the seasons) with a full manual film camera, still got the shots, it doesn't take long to flick a shutter speed dial if you know what your doing.
Click to expand...

:thumbs:

...as I said earlier:
"a good photographer knows in advance what's going on with the light".
 
Just came back and see that it's developed into and real debate.

A lot of very good points made. I guess that manual mode is way better than any of the other modes in delivering consistency across shots in the same set.

So, in that case (especially in the flying bird example) Tv and Av would be useless. How would one pre-estimate the exposure settings in an example like this?

Is it trial and error, with a lot of experience mixed in?

I say in my original post that I can shoot most things, probably a bit exaggerated. I couldnt get multiple shots of a moving object with so many varying backgroung environments like the other members and still get it looking sharp and correctly exposed.

Obviously now I know why.
 
KIPAX said:
but the people advocating manual all the time are not looking at all photogrpahy and have no idea what the OP wants to shoot..

each mode has a use.. nobody should advocate one mode only.. its plain silly .. and not IMHO
Click to expand...

Haven't read past this but totally agree. Why on earth anyone would want to restrict themselves to only using one of the modes available on a camera, for all scenarios, beats me. :shrug:
 
tdodd said:
I can't imagine why anyone would want to shoot stuff like this in anything other than manual. It would surely be a nightmare. For the Av/Tv gurus out there, how would you attempt to deal with an opportunity such as this?
Click to expand...

You've got a constant level of light though. If you're working between sun and shade you'd have had significantly different results. I'd agree though that for the situations you've shown I would probably have used manual as well.
 
dod said:
Haven't read past this but totally agree. Why on earth anyone would want to restrict themselves to only using one of the modes available on a camera, for all scenarios, beats me. :shrug:
Click to expand...

The good thing about "manual" is that there are no "restrictions" - the camera simply does what you instruct it to do.
 
Auto mode will keep the histogram in the middle, regardless of where you point it.

That isn't always what you want. For general point and shoot its not bad, ie walking around the zoo or a day at the park.

If you are taking photos of people, you generally want the exposure on them to remain constant, if they are inside it may be an overall dark, if they are outside it may be much lighter, but the person will appear the same in both.

Is it a problem if the sky is blown or if you loose detail in the black leather sofa? Not really, they are not the target of the photo, the person in front of this is.

This is the same when shooting sport, you want the exposure on the person to be right, the background doesn't really matter.
 
boliston said:
The good thing about "manual" is that there are no "restrictions" - the camera simply does what you instruct it to do.
Click to expand...

so you're happy to restrict yourself to one exposure in an environment which can be changing by the second?
 
Interesting answers so far but I can tell that several contributors don't shoot 'under pressure' so to speak where getting the shot in some form, be it slightly under or overexposed, is sometimes the only way to get the shot at that moment. It's each to their own; use the mode of exposure that your comfortable with - there is no right or wring, just the one that brings the desired result in the way that is best for you.

Personally, I did the whole shooting everything in manual thing because I started off with manual film cameras. I moved over to digital and continued but just found that modern cameras were so good that with a bit of tweaking via exposure comp when required, semi-auto modes just provided me with a speedier option.

I'm an Av man these days for general shooting solely because I can think better in depth-of-field in terms oh thinking out how the shot will appear on the page and how much DoF will help with text overlays etc. Plus, I like having a constant, which is my aperture. For me it's then a case of going with the shutter speed the camera decides or just overriding it as I see fit using exp. comp.

Manual these days comes into play when, as mentioned, I need a 'set & lock' mode for light that is constant, such as when using flash; x250 mode gets an airing a fair bit these days too.

I've been teaching guys at my work lately how to use their camera more fluently and IMO, Av is the route I want them to go down. I took four blokes out for a day's shooting (all of them used manual before) and all but one got what i was trying to do by cutting down on the amount of fiddling with settings they'd have to do by using Av. It's by no means a final solution but they got what i meant and within a week they were sold on using it. They're not great photographers but what I've done is taken away some of the technical input they felt they needed with manual, meaning they can focus more on the actual act of framing and getting composition sorted.

The fourth bloke just couldn't 'get' Av and has stuck with manual. Again, he's not a great photographer*&#8211;*he can get by and produce the odd shot that's good - but I told him that if he feels comfortable with manual then to stick with it and learn that way.

There is never a firm and concrete route to getting an image and at the end of the day, 1/125th at f/8 is 1/125th at f/8 regardless of whether you're shooting in M, Av, Tv or P.... the only difference is the route you take to get to those settings.
 
Last edited:
I've told the story here before.. Went to a musical type event, outside, white stage and performers in black tuxedos. Av mode was predictably all over the place. I had never shot manual before anywhere except stars and macro on a tripod. Got the hang of it in 5 minutes and only had to adjust a bit every 20 mins or so as the light faded over 2 hours. Came back with over 100 well exposed shots and they were much better than the ones which ran in the local newspaper!
 
Excellent thread, well done Tim for taking the time to explain

I watched a Lynda video on the zone system a while back and it kind of ties in with the explanation that Tim is giving I think, my understanding of that at least ties in with Tim's

Basically the shot was a a large white outdoor building and grass in the foreground. The explanation of the zone system was to meter for a neutral colour, grass being a neutral one (zone 5) so in manual you would essentially decide on your aperture and then meter the shutter speed to set the dial at zero. If you then recomposed the shot on the white building and took a meter reading on the camera it should be up at the + end of the meter (zone 7) which would be the correct exposure for bright white. You can then shoot any composition within that area and throw a model into it and everything should expose correctly.

If you let the camera meter the composition it would aim to expose everything as a mid grey, the white building then would not be exposed correctly and in fact as you moved around recomposing it would be constantly changing exposure depending on how much white there was in the scene to always average it out as mid grey. Therefore a model sat within these compositions would have varying levels of skin exposure.

That's my grasp of the subject anyway - I'm no expert so stand to be corrected :thumbs:

Good thread though
 
consistency. Lets say as above you have a 5 minute shoot ina park in the same light. M assures you have absolute consistency of every shot in that shoot. In AV depending on how much light the caqmera sees, the exposure will change from shot to shot.....

Yes in changing light things will be a little more challenging but take a light meter and take a reading in the sun and one when the sun is behind a cloud and you can switch your exposure as you shoot between the two known exposure values.
 
MnM - You have an absolutely perfect grasp of it. :thumbs:

Just one thing to add, for clarity - you say, for example, that you would meter for a neutral tone, such as the grass, which is a good choice, but it might be worth saying which metering pattern you would use to do that, and to make sure you only included grass and nothing else. Personally I'd use spot metering. Partial would be OK too. I'd steer clear of centre weighted average and definitely stay clear of matrix/evaluative.

Having set that initial exposure, if there was something white in the scene of importance I would also fire a test shot and chimp the histogram and check for blinkies on the white building you mentioned. If it was fully lit by sunshine you might possibly find the building to be clipping if you meter the grass at 0. You might need to meter the grass at -1/3 or -2/3. Often sticking green grass at 0 will work very well though.

Another approach would be to meter from the white building at, perhaps +2 on Nikon, maybe a fraction more on Canon. Here again using spot metering can help you "snipe" your meter onto a white bit only,and exclude windows, doors, roof etc. and anything else that would compromise your intent to meter just for the white.

Sorry, guys - we've strayed back onto metering again. :coat:
 
Just one point, if the backlight is greater than 2 stops (3 on a 1D series body) exposure compensation in Auto will not help you.

Second, after reading this I have decided I must use Auto more, can someone tell me how to set it on my 500cm and 503cx please?

Hourses for courses really.
 
EdBray said:
Just one point, if the backlight is greater than 2 stops (3 on a 1D series body) exposure compensation in Auto will not help you.
Click to expand...

It would do if you were able to spot meter off your subject and then set exposure lock, if you wanted to recompose.
 
tdodd said:
It would do if you were able to spot meter off your subject and then set exposure lock, if you wanted to recompose.
Click to expand...

But according to others in the thread you would have then missed the shot ;)
 
EdBray said:
But according to others in the thread you would have then missed the shot ;)
Click to expand...

Well, clearly it depends on the type of subject/scene/lighting/timing you have going on. Personally I'd rather have my exposure locked down in advance rather than have to keep re-metering, locking and recomposing each time I wanted a shot.

I'll still maintain that it is usually more common for the content of the scene to change more rapidly than the light illuminating it - unless you like taking shots of the same thing over and over again in exactly the same setting and with exactly the same composition each time. At least that is my experience for the broad range of shooting I do. That's why it is usually better, for me, to have my exposure set up in advance for the prevailing light, rather than re-metering and adjusting exposure every time my subject/scene/composition changes. Sure, I might finesse my exposure by 1/3 stop or so, but I'd usually be so close to where I wanted to be that I'd get the shot. If I meter for the light, rather than my subject, I don't even need the subject to be present when I set my exposure. I can wait for my subject to turn up and I'll be ready.

An example of that - I might be shooting motorsports. I have an empty track before me, but the cars will be along soon. I want to fill the frame with the cars as they come past. If I was shooting with autoexposure, how would I meter? What if the first car to come through was white? What if it was black, what if it was glinting silver, or yellow, or green, or blue, or striped, or checkered, or purple at the front and lime at the back? What if there was a white car first, followed by black, or vice versa? How would I handle that in autoexposure mode? Personally I would not even try. I'd set a manual exposure in advance, perhaps using the track to meter, or the grass, or my own palm, or basing the settings on Sunny 16. So long as the light did not change every couple of seconds I could shoot a whole bunch of cars coming through and each one would be perfectly exposed. That's the way I like to work - nice and easy.

Now my style of shooting is such that I try to avoid rapidly changing light conditions. That's what makes manual exposure such a useful tool for me. For people firing shots off randomly anywhere within a 360 degree arc, into sunshine, into shade, into backlight they might have different needs. If I was shooting in such conditions then I might very well be using autoexposure too. But I hardly ever shoot like that.

On a sunny day, with the sun over one shoulder the light barely changes from hour to hour, never mind minute to minute or second to second.

On a grey day, with flat, even skies, the light barely changes from hour to hour, never mind minute to minute or second to second.

Under a floodlit arena/circuit/pitch the lighting doesn't alter much, if at all, across the field of interest. If it does then it is predictable. You can prepare in advance to know the (probably small) adjustments you will need if you shoot towards one area vs another.

If you shoot indoors at night, within a large banquet hall, for example, the light will be pretty even throughout the room.

Broken cloud might well cause the light to fluctuate, fairly often, but consider this - for the subject you are shooting do you want to shoot it regardless of the light, or do you only want the shots when it is sunlit, or perhaps when it is shaded? I'm unlikely to want both for the same subject. If the light is wrong I'll wait it out and shoot when it is right.

If you're going to keep spinning round and shooting in all directions then maybe you will create your own variations in the lighting, regardless of what nature offers. Then perhaps you will be better served by autoexposure. I tend not to shoot like that - usually. :D
 
Thanks for the explanation, my first post was just to be informative (with a hint of sarcasm), and my second was just to enforce that not every possible solution is useful in every case.

Personally I think experience goes a long long way towards getting the shot you want in difficult circumstances and whereas it is often possible for a novice to get a good image in such circumstances those with experience will usually have a much greater keeper rate in similar circumstances.

What many people forget in this digital age is that it was not that long ago when there was no auto focus, limited auto modes (with no matrix or spot exposure metering), limited number of available ISO films (and what you had you were stuck with until you changed films), and strangely enough, we still managed to get the required shots.

Have a look at the 'Best Image Ever Thread' and wonder how many of them were taken on Digital cameras! Don't think the likes of Capa, Adams, Cartier-Bresson etc worried about auto modes.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top