Just how 'manual' should a beginner go?

roperc3 said:

roperc3 wrote:

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

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Any time you leave a setting on auto, you are ceding control over that element of the capture to a committee of engineers somewhere in the manufacturer's boardrooms. Don't get me wrong, those engineers are very clever and they get a lot of things right. But, at the end of the day, they made those decisions months or years before you picked up the camera to start shooting.

I used to shoot in Aperture Priority easily 90% of the time. The more I shoot with m4/3, the more I move towards full manual exposure. As long as the lighting situation is not changing rapidly, I prefer manual exposure to get the most out of the camera. The exposure latitude of the sensor is smaller than I would like so I often find that "A" doesn't quite make optimum decisions. When in a rush, I still revert to A as it is good enough most of the time, particularly if I don't plan to print big.

Pretty much everything you list is highly situational. I use autofocus most of the time, though I often refine focus manually and for either very slow or very fast work I may flip to manual focus. I shoot raw so I largely ignore white balance and leave it in auto.

Basically, learn when the camera can make a better decision than you can vs when you can make a better decision than the camera. That equation is different fr every photographer.

Some in this thread don't see the value of using manual mode and I respect your desire to learn - it'll help you learn how to control depth of field and freeze or exaggerate motion.

As a beginner, if you look at everything that can be set manually it is a bit bewildering. I learned manual on my first camera, a fully manual 35mm SLR and I found it a good foundation.

First, I'd learn the big 3: Shutter speed, Aperture, and ISO. If you shoot RAW you can adjust White balance later. Manual focus is not related to exposure and can be learned separately.

Most cameras out of the box will automatically change ISO setting when set on Manual - which to me is not manual at all. Turn this 'feature' off and set it to a reasonable setting: 200 or lower for daylight, 400-800 for dim light, and higher for dark.

Now your camera is really in manual mode - no automatic ISO adjustments. You should have some indication in your viewfinder if the exposure level is 'under' or 'over'.

If the exposure level is under, you have three choices: use a slower shutter speed, use a wider aperture (lower f number), or accept the under exposure (which you might want if shooting something bright against a dark background).

If the exposure level is over, you have the opposite three choices: use a faster shutter speed, use a smaller aperture (higher f number), or accept the over exposure (which you might want if shooting something dark against a bright background.

Now, without image stabilization, you'll definitely see blur at any shutter speed slower than 1/30 sec and you'll freeze fast motion at 1/1000 or faster. Blur can be caused by a moving subject and/or your shaking the camera (whether intentional or not).

By widening the aperture (lower f number), the smaller the range of distances that will be in focus and by narrowing the aperture (higher f number) the larger the range of distances that will be in focus.

ISO setting is how sensitive to light your camera's sensor is. The trade off between low ISO values and high is image quality. Low ISO has little noise and better colors; High ISO has more noise and flatter colors. The only benefit of high ISO is that you can at least take pictures in dimmer light where you couldn't with a lower ISO.

I've always found it easier to learn things by first simplifying by learning the basics.

Have fun and experiment experiment experiment!!!

As most have stated, use whichever mode you are comfortable with and gives you result that you like.

IMO, it is much more important to have a feel for lighting conditions and reflectivity of your subject than to use M mode instead of A mode. If you do not understand how the cameras meter works, then none of the modes will produce good results under less than ideal conditions.

As an example, if you are photographing a backlit polar bear in a snow storm, it important to understand how that affects your camera's meter and whether exposure compensation is required. Whether you compensate by using the exposure comp setting or by setting the aperture and shutter speed manually is not important.

The only time I use manual is when I use a flash as the primary source of light. That is because you are trying to balance 2 separate exposures (flash, and ambient light). Assuming a fixed ISO setting, with flash, you choose the aperture to control depth of field and flash range and let the flash duration determine the exposure. The shutter speed does not affect flash exposure. Ambient exposure is determined by shutter speed and aperture. In my experience, cameras tend to sacrifice ambient exposure when shooting in any of the automatic modes.

tinternaut said:

tinternaut wrote:

Perhaps a beginner should start manual, only using the automatic modes once he/she has a good understanding of what they do?

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Perhaps a beginner should let the camera do what it knows how to do, using P, A, S modes and use spot metering when necessary and/or exposure compensation. Yes, you need to understand what aperture, shutter speed, and ISO do, but why set them manually unless you know why you want to do so. This is a four thirds forum so we all have EVFs and can see pretty much what we are going to get in the viewfinder or LCD.

Seems to me the first thing is to learn to take good photographs. Composition, subject matter, angles, then post processing. When you know why you need to do something differently, then do it, not before.

Since I consider myself a beginner myself we seem to have similar 'problems'.

For myself I decided to start with mostly using P since iAuto is too restricting and A and S need some experimentation to get used to. You see: I want to capture my motives now and learn and improve step by step.

Next I did was to start taking part in challenges (with mostly gruesome results - you need a thick skin) and seeing where I end, comparing with better competition (and with worse to brighten my mood again).

Thing you learn this way: use a tripod for still lives (just do it, don't complain) - this way you learn the soft spot of your lens (each lens behaves differently; you need to see diffraction to believe it - you need the tripod to be able to compare). And so step by step you are improving and improving.

Buy yourself books over composition.

Look in the web what professionals do. Try to analyze why you like it.

Once you mastered the most important principles start improving on post processing.

Do not expect to learn it in a week, be patient.

On the bright side: the OMD shows you possibly blown highlights and lost shadows (teaching you exposure) and the automatics work pretty well - so even a newbie happens over shots like this:


point and shoot P mode, OOC

Try to optimize for fun - that's all what a hobby is about, isn't it?

--
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

roperc3 said:

roperc3 wrote:

In the past, I've shot in A-priority or S-priority but not to any great extent. I'm not really too sure what P-mode does, although I used it quite a lot on my old LX5 when I thought that it decided how to configure itself for certain settings that you gave it at the outset (max ISO for example).

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A lets you set the aperture, camera figures out Shutter Speed. S is the inverse. P is "Program" where the camera set's aperture and shutter. Similar to "auto" but this usually lets you have more control of other features.

roperc3 said:

Having followed some tutorials I've decided I want to start picking settings myself rather than letting the camera do the work for me. My question is how much control should I retain - do I do it all myself (including focusing) or can the OMD do certain things adequately by itself so I don't need to worry about them.

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This is totally up to you. Normally I retain as much control as I need to effectively control the output. So for me, usually that means I'm in Aperture Priority mode and manual ISO control. I'm trying to control depth of field and keep the iso as low as I can for the best results. Of course there are times where I'll flip the PEN into auto-ISO. Usually where I figure I'm going to be shooting at nearly 1600 anyway and if the camera has the opportunity to drop it down, then I let it.

roperc3 said:

White Balance/ISO/Aperture/Shutter Speed/focus ... as an amateur it would be nice to have the camera decide some of these things automatically rather than having to set myself.

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I shoot RAW so I can change the white balance after that fact. As such, I usually leave that auto unless I have a need for a specific setting. ISO I try to keep as low as I can and still get shutter speeds fast enough to capture what I want. Aperture - depends on what DOF I want. Focus - I almost always use AF and only go to manual focus if the AF can't get me what I'm after.

roperc3 said:

Also, do I need to change the settings for each different subject I shoot, e.g. portrait/street/landscape? I know I would for different lighting conditions - sunny, cloudy, night etc.

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Probably yes and yes. For the subject, you'd change the settings to make the photograph come out the way you want it. That's probably the harder part. Changing lighting conditions also require setting changes.

roperc3 said:

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

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Reading and then playing with shots and seeing what happens are usually good ways to figure out your comfort level.

The advantage of shooting in full manual (with the exception of auto-focus) is post processing. Let's say you are shooting a tree outside & want to try 5 different frames, having full manual means you would only really need to tweak exposure/contrast/etc on a single shot then replicate over to the other 4 and be 99% of the way there.

Shooting in P/Auto could give varying exposures & so editing may need to be done one by one!

Manual also comes into it's own for stitching panoramas .