So my post is up… the EPIC post on manual settings- over at Slice of Lemon.com seriously you guys, i kind of appologize for the lengthiness of it (6 pages in word!) but it really did need to be said.
I’m so happy to finally have a place that i can send people when they email me those desperate SO-FRUSTRATED-WITH-MY-CAMERA emails hoping for a little bit of help. I was there once as well, and can totally relate. SO, pretty much, if you ever have a question about how to start shooting in manual mode, i’m going to refer you there! here’s a little taste:
you are SO AWESOME for attempting this, for challenging yourself to be smarter than your camera. Because you ARE smarter, and you CAN make better pictures than it can on automatic.
When you take photographs with your camera in manual mode, what you are essentially doing is balancing three settings on your camera to achieve proper exposure. That’s it! That’s all you need to do- 3 settings! When we talk about exposure, it is the total amount of light that is allowed to fall on the photographic medium like a negative, a digital sensor, or that old photo paper that we used to dip into chemicals in a dark room. If there is too much light allowed to fall on that medium, your picture will turn out bright white- we call this overexposed. If there is not enough light, it will turn out too dark – underexposed.
Making sure your image is properly exposed is the VERY first thing you do before taking a picture. and to make sure it’s exposed, you balance three different settings that give different effects. Lets talk each one of them first, and then we’ll put them all together to see how they work with each other in different ways.
Here is a little visual that you can refer back to later:
