Why use manual mode?

[cobra_lite]

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.

Don McC still doesn't - does all his OXFAM documentary work on old Olympus OM-film cameras.

 

[artyman]

Back in the good old days of mandraulic film cameras with no built in metering or AF I always had mine set to an average exposure setting and focus so could grab a shot if I needed to, a case of being prepared.

 

[DuncanH]

Firstly Tdodd I think your wedding couple look a perfect pair (opposites attract) and I hope they are very happy together.

I believe the key thing is to understand all the issues regarding exposure, the circumstances you are shooting in, how each exposure method works and know the results you want, many posts on this thread show the understanding you need.

What's best ? None they are all tools (av, tv, iso, manual, compensation, metering patterns and where you meter) to be used in the right circumstances to gain the results you want.

I think occasionally there is snobbery about using manual but also sometimes it's because all the tools aren't really understood. I was brought up (father was a fashion photographer) with handheld weston light meters and flash guide numbers (string tied to the studio flash with knots every foot). Still use the weston, given up on the string !!

Wonder when the first handheld light meter came out if there was the discussion if "manual" (the eye) or using these new light meter gadgets was best.

I do event photographer for a living so my objective is to capture the shot first, sharp second then exact exposure third and will use any of the options to ensure I achieve this as consistently as possible in the conditions I'm working in. Have to be consistent straight out the camera and 98% keepers.

Good thread

 

[MnM]

MnM - You have an absolutely perfect grasp of it.

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.

Cheers Tim

Yes, you're right, the bit I missed was when the instructor on the video was metering off the grass, he zoomed in so that the grass filled the frame and yes, as you say, spot or partial.

As for the actual zones and how they compare to the camera's meter here's an explanation for anyone wanting to explore more. I apologise in advance but it is taken from Mr Rockwell and is based on film, but the principle still applies to digital. I think it's a nice easy explanation that eases people into a more detailed one as in this link

http://dpanswers.com/content/tech_zonesystem.php

Here's how much to add or subtract with the center-weight or spot manual meters:

-3 stops (Zone II): Your slide film goes pretty black here. Don't do this unless you want something pretty much completely black. Yes, you can see some detail on Velvia even at -4 stops (Zone I), but good luck trying to print it.

-2 Stops (Zone III): Normal shadows in landscapes are set here. You will use this a lot. This is about as much underexposure you can use and still have detail. For instance, make a spot reading of the shadow and set your camera to underexpose that shadow spot by two stops. If you are lucky everything else will fall into the proper exposure. You don't really need luck: use your spot meter to make sure that at the exposure you set that everything else falls where it ought to per this chart.

-1 Stop (Zone IV): Very few things are set here. This is a dark middle tone, like a red painted barn.

Normal exposure (Zone V): This is where you set middle tones or a gray card. Sometimes the north sky is set to normal (+-0). Oddly, in many scenes there is no middle tone, which is why spot meters usually cannot be used without knowing the zone system. Sometimes green grass falls here.

+1 Stop (Zone VI): Medium light parts of an image. Skin and granite rocks go here. For most landscape photos you'll set your light rocks here, and the shadows at -2 stops. Bright yellow is set at +2/3 stops.

+2 Stops (Zone VII): White things like snow and sheets of white Fome-cor are set here.

+2.7 Stops (Zone VIII): This is where slide film goes clear.

This is how the zones of the classic zone system correspond to the analog bar graph on your exposure meter:

Zone II = -3 stops
Zone III = -2 stops
Zone IV = -1 stop
Zone V = +- 0 stops
Zone VI = +1 stop
Zone VII = +2 stops
Zone VIII = +3 stops

 

[Lunaticsamurai]

I think that this is just going round in circles and everyone is arguing the toss.

I shoot manual, why? because it suits my needs, simple.

 

[lythambelle]

It doesn't have a full stop less exposure. It's 2/3 brighter. It's at 1/100 vs 1/160. The white sock bride is also brighter. This is because the presence of the black sock groom and the reduced size of the white sock bride in the frame is causing the exposure to be raised.

Here you go - I've swapped the images. Now there is a progression from black through mixed to white and you see the exposure diminish as the subject becomes paler and paler.

These are now sequenced 1/30, 1/100, 1/160.

Hi tdodd, how do you meter for (weddings to pick one example) do you use a seperate hand held incident light meter or a few test shots & and adjust accordingley?

 

[tdodd]

Hi tdodd, how do you meter for (weddings to pick one example) do you use a seperate hand held incident light meter or a few test shots & and adjust accordingley?

I spot meter off whatever takes my fancy and place the meter needle where I want it to end up. I might meter off green grass at about 0. I might meter off the brightest part of the wedding dress at +3 (since I shoot raw with a Canon). I might meter off my own palm at +1.3. I might meter off a pale bride's forehead at about +1.3 or a tanned bride's forehead at about 0. I might look at a wall with an even tone, guess at whereabouts it should end up between -3 and +3 on the meter.

I'll use spot metering to do all/any of that. I'll fire a test shot and chimp it, just to make sure I'm not losing anything important, especially in the highlights, and at the same time making sure I'm making full use of the dynamic range of the sensor as far as I can - i.e. to put my important highlights at the right hand edge of the histogram, maybe showing just the barest hint of blinking in the highlight alert warnings. My goal is to ETTR for my highlights. Then, once I know my exposure is good (and safe) for anything that comes along in that light then I can fire away with impunity, just chimping every now and again to make sure everything is still on track.

To date I have not used a light meter, although I did buy one last year, but I bought it for measuring off camera flash, not ambient light exposures.

I should say that I am not a wedding tog. I've only shot six weddings, the last one being in April 2009, and have no plans to shoot any more. The experience I've gained from those occasions and other sorts of shooting over the years has led me to conclude that I can get more reliable results, usually, if I stick with manual exposure. On the occasions when I can't keep up with the changing light levels I will switch to one of the Av modes and evaluative metering and hope the camera won't let me down too much.

Oh, one more "set and forget" trick for shooting manual - on a sunny day, with the sun somewhere behind you, simply dial in a "Sunny 16" exposure which can be anything you like so long as it is equivalent to 1/ISO at f/16 - i.e. 1/100 at 100 ISO, 1/200 at 200 ISO and so on. You can, of course, select a different aperture, so long as you make corresponding adjustments elsewhere to balance things out. You might need to tweak a little for unusual scenes, like a snowy mountain or a white sand beach, but it's a great starting point. Then you can stick whatever you like in front of the camera and you'll have a pretty good exposure. Maybe it won't be optimum (i.e. not ETTR), especially for a dark subject on a mid tone background, but you'll be able to fine tune a little and then depend on consistent exposures from one shot to the next.

Here's a "Sunny 16" example from today. It may not be a bride in a white dress, although as far as "white highlights" go it is as good as, but as an example of exposing to hold the highlights perfectly this is pretty good. No metering required. Set it. Forget it. No danger of the meter getting confused and the swan being overexposed or under. Just simple precision. You could take the swan out of the scene and bring in a bride instead and the exposure would remain equally spot on for her too. Add the groom. Still perfect. Add the whole wedding party. Still perfect.

As for the detail in the highlight tones, it's all there. If this had been a wedding dress then none of the detail work would have been lost. It's unfortunate that hand held at 1/800 the sharpness is not quite spot on for viewing at 100%, but that has nothing to do with the exposure....

 

[tdodd]

I think that this is just going round in circles and everyone is arguing the toss.

I actually see very little argument here. I see the thread developing and people sharing knowledge and improving their understanding of techniques they might not have used before.

 

[HoppyUK]

Cheers Tim

Yes, you're right, the bit I missed was when the instructor on the video was metering off the grass, he zoomed in so that the grass filled the frame and yes, as you say, spot or partial.

As for the actual zones and how they compare to the camera's meter here's an explanation for anyone wanting to explore more. I apologise in advance but it is taken from Mr Rockwell and is based on film, but the principle still applies to digital. I think it's a nice easy explanation that eases people into a more detailed one as in this link

http://dpanswers.com/content/tech_zonesystem.php

Edit: crossed post with Tim

I'm not going to diss the Zone System because an understanding of tonal value is very useful, but with digital, that's about where it ends.

The Zone System is for shooting negative film and includes both exposure setting and individual development and printing techniques. Where it differs from digital, crucially, is that neg film is very tolerant of over exposure and highlights are always retained even though they block up and some detail is lost.

Digital is just the opposite and when you over expose the highlights they blow into nothing. It's like slide film in that respect, but the difference with digital is that you can make adjustments in post processing which you can't with slide film (if you like, shooting direct to JPEG is similar to slide film).

For optimum exposure with digital, the technique is to shoot Raw and push the Exposure To The Right of the histogram, and then pull the tone values back to their correct positions in post processing (good article here http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml ). Generally speaking, if you just put Zone V on zero then the highlights (at least the ones that matter) will often not even reach the right hand side of the histogram and you will waste a lot of potential. Futhermore, the sensor is able to record far more data on the right than the left - very substantially more.

The end result of ETTR technique is usually an exposure that is a couple of stops more than the meter will suggest, with maximised and extended dynamic range. Highlights and mid tones are finely detailed, and in particular the shadows are dragged out of the murk with better gradation and much less noise.

You don't need to know anything about the Zone System for ETTR. You just need to be able to read the histogram and with blinkies enabled (highlight over exposure warning, in the menu) that is pretty straightforward. Take a test shot and chimp. Increase the exposure until the blinkies start to flash, which they will do quite soon on shiny spectular reflections like white paint, car bumpers etc. But that usually doesn't matter as they will blow anyway, wait until things like white cuffs and collars start to blow, reflections off foreheads etc. You probably want to retain some detail there, so that's your limit.

When the blinkies just start, you are close to the limit, but not yet over it. However, also bear in mind that blinkies are derived from the JPEG image parameters, as are the LCD image and histogram, and the contrast setting in particular has quite a big influence on that, like one stop or more. It you really want to live on the edge, turn the contrast down to zero and that will allow you to maximise the result.

When you get ETTR right, it looks brilliant. Images have much more richness and punch. But you have to know what you're doing and be able to make a good judgement call on which highlight areas you are prepared to let blow (either because they will anyway, or is doesn't matter) and which ones to hold. Different cameras/settings and processing regimes will behave slighly differently, so do a few tests.

If this sounds like 'expose for the highlights and let the shadows look after themselves' technique, it is effectively exactly that, and there are other ways of doing it, eg spot meter off a key highlight tone and position that accordingly - which TBH is basic Zone System practise The difference is that it is customised to your camera and your way of working, and IMHO it is also easier and more accurate.

 

[tdodd]

Here's an example from this morning, shot with manual exposure, equivalent to Sunny 16 (1/1600, f/5.6, 200 ISO), no guesswork, no trial and error, no edits. I looked at the bright, sunny sky, the front illuminated subject and set the exposure to match Sunny 16. Easy peasy. One shot, one kill....

The vignette effect is natural light falloff from the lens being used wide open on a full frame body.

The swan image was shot while walking the dog today. Sunny 16 is a great starting point for your exposure when you have important sunlit brilliant white in the scene for which you want to retain detail.

Now my dog is very dark toned. To shoot her it is better to set the exposure one stop brighter. I rattled off dozens of shots of her today at 1/1600, f/5.6, 400 ISO, which is one stop brighter than Sunny 16, and the exposures captured bags of detail in the fur without losing me anything important in the rest of the scene. Here are several images shot today all with an identical exposure and all without edits....

You'll note that there are several sequence shots, with the dog increasing in size within the frame, yet the exposure is rock solid, as one would want and expect. Now isn't that easier than faffing about with autoexposure and exposure compensation?

If I was shooting a scene which included both the swan and my dog then I would choose an exposure to hold detail in the swan. I might nudge the exposure 1/3 stop higher at the risk of minor highlight clipping, but not if it meant that great patches of the swan were transformed into featureless flat white. The human eye is drawn to bright elements in the scene. The detail in the swan must be recorded well. The detail in the dog - well, that'll have to be recovered with a bit of wiggling of the tone curve at the shadow end, or perhaps adding some fill light.

 

[SixToes]

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.

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?

Playing devils advocate, you could get *most* of these using spot metering. Your snow pictures you could easily get in a semi-auto mode using exposure compensation. I think manual would be easier in both though.

As others have said I think it's horses for courses. If I was shooting the kind of stuff Kipax does under variable light I'd probably go semi-auto, for most flash work and situations with constant lighting (as long as you've had a chance to meter) manual works.

One more point - I think there is also a difference depending on your equipment - if you only have one dial (for example on a 400d or d40) then it's harder to use manual in situations where you need to change settings quickly.

 

[lensflair]

I use manual mode whenever I'm using flash.

For off camera flash I have camera in manual and flash in manual. For on camera bounce flash camera is in manual, flash in ttl.

I also use manual if I am doing a series of shots where the lighting isn't going to change. The advantage of manual is your camera meters every shot in the auto modes and every time you recompose the camera can adjust settings. This leads to inconsistency between shots and makes pp a pain when you have lots to do.

With flash, I want to control how much ambient light is used in the exposure and for outdoor flash when its bright, its best to go straight to the cameras max. Sync speed because you loose power in high speed sync flash mode. With ttl flash, the camera takes the whole exposure into account and adjusts flash power automatically. Again I want consistency and control over how much ambient light is used.

I usually use aperture priority and ride the exposure comp. If I am running and gunning in available light, but I pre-empt what the camera will do usually before I even take a shot and dial in some ev comp based on the scene. I use matrix metering and most of the time can nail exposure on the first try, I give the lcd a quick glance and dial it in if I'm not spot on.

It's about using the right tool for the job and using what works best for you. You need to know how your gear will react in different situations and eventually the technical aspects become second nature. It's only then that you can concentrate on being creative properly. That level of proficiency with the gear takes time and lots of practise. But it pays off in the end.

 

[Jiffy]

I use manual mode in challanging light conditions and also when I want to be a little more creative, it allows me full control to get the results I want to get at that time

 

[Steelfish]

I use manual mode pretty much exclusively when taking pics at night time parties using external flash.

I usually set ISO 200, 200th second and a appropriate aperture for the shot. The Nissin flash is in TTL mode and seems to compensate well for whichever f number I decide for the shot.

For some reason in aperture priority mode I can't get a shutter speed faster than 1/60th with external flash so I went manual

 

[lensflair]

I use manual mode pretty much exclusively when taking pics at night time parties using external flash.

I usually set ISO 200, 200th second and a appropriate aperture for the shot. The Nissin flash is in TTL mode and seems to compensate well for whichever f number I decide for the shot.

For some reason in aperture priority mode I can't get a shutter speed faster than 1/60th with external flash so I went manual

What camera are you using there? Reason I ask is I never shoot flash less than 800iso. Only time I go low is fill flash outdoors or if I'm trying to overpower the sun. Low ISO makes the flash work so hard and ISO 800 should be clean enough on any of the more recent dslrs if you don't under expose. Using higher ISO gives you much faster recycle times and avoids the flash overheating. Just something you might want to try if you haven't already. Cheers.

 

[Steelfish]

What camera are you using there? Reason I ask is I never shoot flash less than 800iso. Only time I go low is fill flash outdoors or if I'm trying to overpower the sun. Low ISO makes the flash work so hard and ISO 800 should be clean enough on any of the more recent dslrs if you don't under expose. Using higher ISO gives you much faster recycle times and avoids the flash overheating. Just something you might want to try if you haven't already. Cheers.

OMG I can't believe I didn't think about that. Thanks so much!!

I have a d90 so ISO 800 is fine. As I'm yet to buy any decent rechargeables I've been getting through Duracell batteries at an alarming rate using my old approach. You'll be saving me money also.

I'll test this out your suggestion later this evening.

 

[lensflair]

OMG I can't believe I didn't think about that. Thanks so much!!

I have a d90 so ISO 800 is fine. As I'm yet to buy any decent rechargeables I've been getting through Duracell batteries at an alarming rate using my old approach. You'll be saving me money also.

I'll test this out your suggestion later this evening.

Yeah d90 will be fine as long as you don't underexpose you won't notice noise. You can shoot a ton of frames on a single set of batteries. I have found the MiNh rechargeables don't heat up as fast as disposables so they are the way to go imo.

The faster recycle time is great and the flash is less intrusive too because of the lower power. The other benefit if higher ISO is you can bounce the flash into a wall a much greater distance to get nice directional light on your subject.

 

[Steelfish]

Just tested this all out. Works perfectly thanks very much.

I use iso800 on the d90, but doing the same thing on the gf1 I'm sticking to iso400 as 800 is too noisy. The theory still holds true though.

Still news to get myself some eneloops though.