A "Beginner's" question about manual settings

Very much appreciate the continued nudges of encouragement and the advice/tips. I think I may be improving (albeit at a snail's pace)... probably part of it being that as I learn more about the D7000 my eye is getting more critical regarding the technical quality of the shots I'm taking. I've gone back and looked at pictures I shot a year or two ago that I thought were really good and now they don't seem all that hot.

I've been doing a small amount of post processing work with Gimp and probably know how to use 5% of it's capabilities. It certainly does a nice job of punching up pictures but right or wrong, I'd still prefer to be able to take the best possible pictures using the camera before breaking out the tools. My experience mirrors yours in that making corrections in the software IS often easier than tweaking with the camera in the field. But.. if you're going to carry around an expensive camera, I figure I ought to learn how to use it properly. I just purchased LR3 but have not done anything with it yet.

I took two virtually identical shots yesterday. One in landscape mode and one in manual using VERY similar ISO, shutter and aperture settings. The histogram looked great on the manual shot yet the color is MUCH more vivid in the landscape scene shot. I'm wondering if there is a setting in the D7000 that needs to be turned on to get similar nice color in manual. The meta information for both pictures looked similar except for the white balance red, blue coefficients. I couldn't tell you off the top how I have WB set but do I need to adjust something there (or elsewhere)? The sky in the landscape scene mode shot was really blue... much more washed out in manual, for example.

I took a series of pictures this weekend and was happier that I seem to be at least starting to "get it" as far as manual goes. The results I am getting are still not as good as what I get from the D7000 in auto scene mode but at least they are not total rubbish. I'd be interested in what could be done to get better shots in camera under the conditions I took these (bleak, overcast day). I did tweak most of them using Gimp but nothing major.

http://www.theoriginaleasyrider.com/pcc_third.htm

I also have a bunch of shots taken Sunday at:

http://www.theoriginaleasyrider.com/balfour_2012.htm

As a reference shot, the pic at the bottom was taken using my GF's Nikon CoolpixL11 in full auto mode. This very inexpensive P&S camera takes excellent pictures... it's been a disappointment to me (and one of my motivations to sign up for a basic digital camera course) that my $1,500 D7000 often takes pictures that are not as good as her $100 toy camera (when I take mine off of auto). I realize that the fault is mine, not the camera's.. and in auto mode my D7000 takes REALLY good pictures as well.

Your C&C your feedback would be very welcome and appreciated.

Check page 131 of the manual, titled "Image Enhancement - Picture controls"

Jones0610 said:

I took two virtually identical shots yesterday. One in landscape mode and one in manual using VERY similar ISO, shutter and aperture settings. The histogram looked great on the manual shot yet the color is MUCH more vivid in the landscape scene shot. I'm wondering if there is a setting in the D7000 that needs to be turned on to get similar nice color in manual. The meta information for both pictures looked similar except for the white balance red, blue coefficients. I couldn't tell you off the top how I have WB set but do I need to adjust something there (or elsewhere)? The sky in the landscape scene mode shot was really blue... much more washed out in manual, for example.

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You still seem to be missing the relationship between aperture, shutter speed, and exposure mode. You may be better helped by trying some of the advice other posters provided in that regard already. That might help more in terms of understanding any CC and speed the process. Good luck.

I think a lot of the differences that you are seeing are related to the fact that in the auto modes, there is a lot of built in in-camera processing that you don't get when shooting in manual. I believe that in the landscape mode, the camera automatically bumps up the contrast, sharpening and saturation. If you haven't told the camera that you want it to do this in other modes, it's not going to get done. Good news is that anything that can be done in the auto modes can be done in other modes too. You just have to set the camera up to do it. I'm not familiar with the d7000 so i can't tell you exactly how to do it, but what i think you should do is go into the menu like a previous poster said and adjust the picture quality.

Honestly (and I'm sure that I'm going to get blasted for this... but) I think that shooting in manual mode is completely overblown in this day and age. I'm not saying that it doesn't have it's uses, but i just don't see any reason that someone needs to spend the majority of the time shooting in manual. The only time I ever shoot in full manual is when I'm using my old manual focus lenses that don't meter with my camera. 99.9999% of the rest of the time, I'm using aperture priority, with the other 0.0001% being in shutter priority. I pretty much never use manual mode when my camera can meter the scene for me. Nikon cameras have arguably the best meters in the industry. I feel like it is much easier to get a basic understanding of how the meter works and what types of situations are going to "fool" the meter and make adjustments accordingly. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather spend time thinking a bout composition than worrying about exposure. And I've been doing it long enough that I can usually predict ahead of time when the meter is not going to give me a good exposure and adjust the exposure compensation accordingly. With digital, you don't even have to get it right the first time (especially when shooting landscapes). You can check the histogram and try again.

cory a said:

I think a lot of the differences that you are seeing are related to the fact that in the auto modes, there is a lot of built in in-camera processing that you don't get when shooting in manual.

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Very true.

cory a said:

Honestly (and I'm sure that I'm going to get blasted for this... but) I think that shooting in manual mode is completely overblown in this day and age. I'm not saying that it doesn't have it's uses, but i just don't see any reason that someone needs to spend the majority of the time shooting in manual.

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My grandpa had a saying about outhouses/privies..."To each his own". Same would apply toward how one chooses to drive his camera. I prefer manual mode; shoot that way most of the time. Others likely get just as consistent results shooting P, A, or S, or a well-timed selection of each according to what the scene is doing in front of the lens. I can see firsthand why many sing the praises of shooting manual, as when I made the transition to shooting that way it radically changed my understanding of still photography.

I completely agree about the "to each his own" part. If someone wants to shoot manual, far be it from me to stand in their way. I just get irritated when someone tells an obvious beginner with limited understanding of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to start trying to shoot in manual mode, like this will somehow make them a better photographer. I actually think that aperture priority and shutter priority are better teaching tools. I always think back to all my physics teachers in high school and college- "work on one variable at a time." By isolating one variable and letting the camera handle the rest, it's easier to see the effects of the variable you are dealing with. When you master each of the variables individually, then you can put it all together for full manual.

Not to mention that exposure is only half of a good picture, composition is pretty important too. People new to shooting manual get so wrapped up in getting a correct exposure that they tend to forget about composition.