Photography is an art. And art, for the most part, is pretty subjective. Everyone has his or her own preference of style, color, composition and feel. Some might be drawn to images that are softer and have that “blown out” or light feel, while others might be drawn to bolder, crisper images.
At the end of the day, however, one thing is common among the best photographers: they control their cameras; their cameras do not control them.
If you are a hobbyist, a budding photographer or just an owner of a really nice DSLR camera, and you feel like you’re not getting the images you really want (or you feel like your camera is controlling you) then the best way to get control of your camera is to shoot in manual mode.
Now, this is not a breakdown of how to shoot in manual mode — there are plenty of resources out there for that. This is simply a list of reasons (four to be exact) of why you need to be shooting in manual versus auto, or even aperture priority.
1.Manual mode allows you to control the amount of light in your images. Photography is about light — the amount of light entering the lens and being recorded as an image. That’s photography in a nutshell. When you shoot in manual mode, you have the control of your exposure to give you that soft, light, almost blown-out look, or you have the ability to create darker images such as a silhouette in front of a sunset. By controlling the light in your images through the adjustments of your aperture, shutter speed and ISO, you won’t have to rely on harsh on-camera flash. The days of that awful red-eye are history!
2.You choose what’s in focus! Do you want someone’s ring to be in focus, but their hand to be out of focus? What about one rose in focus versus an entire bush? By having control over the light and the aperture in your image, you are able to create beautiful and stunning images centered around your focal point of choice. You tell the camera where you want the viewer’s eye to be drawn. Have you ever seen an image with a gorgeous, blurry, almost glittery background (often called “bokeh”) and the subject is perfectly in focus? That is achieved through shooting in manual mode. There’s no real way of achieving that perfect focus when you’re shooting in automatic.
3.You’re using your camera to its full potential. If you have a nice, fancy-schmancy DSLR camera and you are shooting in automatic mode, you are basically throwing away your money — you are using the camera the same way you’d take an image with your cellphone. In manual mode, your camera can do so much more and give you the images you really dream of.
4.You have much greater creative freedom. Shooting in manual gives you the opportunity to be totally creative with what your images look like. Want to take a long exposure image of cars driving on a highway at night? Manual mode is what will do that for you. Want to capture an image of a football player the moment he’s catching the winning touchdown? It’s a split-second image that will be lost in a camera that’s not being told what to do. Manual mode will do that for you. The possibilities are pretty much endless!
So, there you have it. Four reasons that have hopefully convinced you to turn that little dial on your camera from “Auto” (or “A”) to “M.”
What about you? Have you been shooting in auto and are ready to take the plunge to manual? Are you a manual shooter who has converted? What reasons did you have for switching?
Molly Stillman is a writer for Artsy Couture, a professional photo printing lab. She is a marketing executive, blogger, mama, and wife. She also is extremely passionate about lifestyle and portrait photography and loves encouraging others in the pursuits of their goals and dreams.
