Semi manual

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jimmy83

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Ive noticed a few people have recommended people to start of by using the camera on semi manual-if you call it that? So for me just would I use either TV/AV or P?

Iam a little confused as to what each funtion does and what would be best to use...I was generally just using M and then changing my AV and shutter speed until I get the exposure bar in the middle on the screen....again I dont know if this is correct or not?

Just after some advice really :)
 
jimmy83 said:
Ive noticed a few people have recommended people to start of by using the camera on semi manual-if you call it that? So for me just would I use either TV/AV or P?

Iam a little confused as to what each funtion does and what would be best to use...I was generally just using M and then changing my AV and shutter speed until I get the exposure bar in the middle on the screen....again I dont know if this is correct or not?

Just after some advice really :)
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Well you are using the "M" Manual function correct but can sometimes take a bit of fiddling to get exact settings for the effect you want.

A = Auto everything mode
P = Not pro, Program, shutter/aperture auto but allows you to adjust exposure compensation(Lighter/darker), white balance etc...
TV = Shutter priority, high speed to freeze frame, slow speed for blur/panning etc.
AV = Aperture priority, Mainly adjust depth of field (Shallow/Large)..

The ISO also plays an important part to all of these...

:thumbs:
 
Hi Jimmy83,

I'll start by saying, AV or TV, it's just a matter of which you are more comfortable with and what you are trying to achieve, they both do the same sort of thing but the opposite way around to each other, put simply. One takes care of the aperture depending on what shutterspeed you select (tv) the other takes care of the shutterspeed depending on what aperture you select. In manual, you decide on both.

If you were wanting to take a portrait, and wanted a large aperture, you would use the AV mode to select the desired aperture and then the camera would take care of the shutterspeed depending on light conditions and which metering mode you were using. If you wanted to freeze some action you'd want a fast shutterspeed so would need to control that yourself, and therefore would use TV mode.

In either AV or TV you have the added control of exposure compensation too - usually up to +2 or -2 with increments inbetween.

Don't forget, you may want to under or overexpose to some degree, you can use the exposure compensation in AV/TV or you can just use Manual and look at the meter and set your camera accordingley like you have been doing (taking note of the little indicator as you have been doing but not necessarily making it go to the very middle)
 
TBH ive always wanted to try manual but it is so awkward when you have one wheel, thats why i want to upgrade to an a700 for dual scroll wheel. for now i only ever use aperture priority or shutter priority.
 
mastertrinity said:
TBH ive always wanted to try manual but it is so awkward when you have one wheel, thats why i want to upgrade to an a700 for dual scroll wheel. for now i only ever use aperture priority or shutter priority.
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I'm not familiar with the Sony range, but doesn't it have a quick settings change screen like my 50D has? I do have two wheels of course but sometimes it's easier with the screen, as I can change all the settings in one place, with just one button.
 
I should add Jimmy,

AV is a really good way to understand the affects of different apertures, and TV is a really good way to learn how shutterspeed effects the shot, without having to worry about the other setting.
 
Hmmm thanks alot...didnt even think about the ISO.

So general shooting, what settings would you suggest me to use?
 
jimmy83 said:
Hmmm thanks alot...didnt even think about the ISO.

So general shooting, what settings would you suggest me to use?
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I'm afraid we can't do that - there just isn't a "general shooting" setting. I'd say carry on what you were doing to be honest. Meter, set aperture and shutterspeed and ISO using the meter as a guide. Experiment with the two other modes as mentioned to learn how each setting affects the shot. Use this information to further your understanding on the manual mode. You can also use auto exposure bracketing to help you nail the exposure, your manual will tell you how to do this.

Ultimately though, what you are shooting, the current lighting conditions and the effects you are after will govern what settings you use.
 
For general use I would say that Av is safer to use if you want to use a semi-auto mode. My reason for saying that is that the camera has a wider range of shutter speeds to choose from to get the exposure right. In Tv mode, the camera has a more limited range of options with regard to selecting a suitable aperture, which is entirely dependent on the range provided by the lens you have fitted at the time.

With regard to ISO, I usually go for the lowest I can get away with for the light conditions. This is purely because noise problems become worse higher up the ISO scale. The level of noise and at which setting it becomes a problem varies from camera to camera.
 
Ste Manns said:
I'm afraid we can't do that - there just isn't a "general shooting" setting. I'd say carry on what you were doing to be honest. Meter, set aperture and shutterspeed and ISO using the meter as a guide. Experiment with the two other modes as mentioned to learn how each setting affects the shot. Use this information to further your understanding on the manual mode. You can also use auto exposure bracketing to help you nail the exposure, your manual will tell you how to do this.

Ultimately though, what you are shooting, the current lighting conditions and the effects you are after will govern what settings you use.
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Ok, as its taking me a while to change the settings before each shot changing the ISO will also take more time(can I set the ISO to auto, if poss)? How people get all the settings ready before each shot amazes me especially as some shots you have to be really quick to capture that moment! :thinking:
 
jimmy83 said:
Ok, as its taking me a while to change the settings before each shot changing the ISO will also take more time(can I set the ISO to auto, if poss)? How people get all the settings ready before each shot amazes me especially as some shots you have to be really quick to capture that moment! :thinking:
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You can set ISO to auto, I did at first, one less thing to worry about but nowadays I prefer to control this myself, the 50D doesn't have great hi ISO performance!

Regarding the time it takes, well you will get faster with experience, but honestly slowing down before taking the picture is not a bad thing at all - it makes you think harder. Plus, if you're in one spot taking similar shots in a group you will have pretty much sorted your settings out after the first shot or two and then you can just tweak them a little from there.

Regarding the shots where you need to be quick, well usually I guess you will have already got somewhere close exposure wise before looking for the picture, when you see it you will again just have to tweak the settings a little. There are alsorts of little tricks too - wildlife photographers I think tend to take test shots of an area they know will be where they point their cameras for the shot they are after, and hence have a correct exposure when they need it. Photography generally isn't random as much as you'd think, and forward planning is the key.
 
Ok thanks, so you reckon just carry on as I was...and leave the ISO on auto? I did start to play with the A mode, but as you say I assume iam not goign to learn much that way

Ste Manns said:
I'd say carry on what you were doing to be honest. Meter, set aperture and shutterspeed and ISO using the meter as a guide. Experiment with the two other modes as mentioned to learn how each setting affects the shot. Use this information to further your understanding on the manual mode. You can also use auto exposure bracketing to help you nail the exposure, your manual will tell you how to do this.

Ultimately though, what you are shooting, the current lighting conditions and the effects you are after will govern what settings you use.
Click to expand...
 
I don't see why not, as you learn, turn the auto ISO off and control this too to give you even more control. By all means use the AV and TV modes to help you learn those aspects of exposure, but if you can take a good shot on Manual already I wouldn't bother to be honest, you're already doing well!

Then it's just practice practice and some more practice for good measure. Soon exposure will become effortless and you can concentrate on other things like composition. Have a look on the tutorials section, theres an excellent tutorial on the basics of exposure right there.
 
You seem to have a grasp of the basics, shutter speed and aperture are directly linked, as also is the ISO setting, but leave that for the moment. So setting a fast shutter speed would be needed for a race car for instance so using Tv the camera will work out what aperture is required for a correct exposure and set that for you, you would obviously choose something fast. If you were shooting a landscape, then as it doesn't moveabout you use Av and set the Aperture, probably quite high like f11 so that you get plenty of depth of field ie in focus from front to horizon. The camera will calculate the shutter speed to give the correct exposure.

In the first example, if you find that the camera can't set a wide enough aperture (you have a slow lens, we can't all afford f2 lenses :D) then you would need to increase the ISO until the warning in the display stops blinking, or if you wanted a smaller aperture as well as a fast shutter speed, the sensor needs to be made more sensitive to the light available, so you might increase it from say 200ISO to 800 ISO thus gaining 2 stops worth of light, which would let you keep your initially selected shutter speed and then bring the correct exposure within the limits of the aperture that your lens can set, which is probably still going to be fairly wide open. Hope that helps.
 
i started with auto being my first digital
results and criticisms from others quickly showed P is the best starter point and choose your own iso
being knowledgeable of camera settings i can and do use when necessary A/S/M

mainly A for landscaping as the P tends to go for speed
 
Ste Manns said:
I don't see why not, as you learn, turn the auto ISO off and control this too to give you even more control.
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I dont seem to have auto ISO?! :thinking:
 
I don't see much advantage to auto ISO. In most cases it's fairly easy to judge lighting conditions before you start taking photos, so it's easy enough to set your ISO accordingly, and then forget about it..

Personally I always set the lowest ISO I think I can get away with to minimise noise, unless I am looking for a grainy effect for whatever reason. Having said that, it's easy enough to add noise in post processing.
 
Scarecrow said:
I don't see much advantage to auto ISO. In most cases it's fairly easy to judge lighting conditions before you start taking photos, so it's easy enough to set your ISO accordingly, and then forget about it..

Personally I always set the lowest ISO I think I can get away with to minimise noise, unless I am looking for a grainy effect for whatever reason. Having said that, it's easy enough to add noise in post processing.
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So should I leave my ISO on 100?
 
jimmy83 said:
So should I leave my ISO on 100?
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if its the lowest...
mine is 64 iso lowest and i am loathe to take it off that...being a low Mp camera
and i use P...or semi auto..??
most of the time
 
jimmy83 said:
So should I leave my ISO on 100?
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If there is enough light to get away with using ISO 100, then I see no reason why you couldn't do that. As soon as light levels drop to the point where you are no longer able to use your preferred shutter speed and/or aperture, that's the point where you should consider changing the ISO (or at least that's what I do.)
 
Scarecrow said:
If there is enough light to get away with using ISO 100, then I see no reason why you couldn't do that. As soon as light levels drop to the point where you are no longer able to use your preferred shutter speed and/or aperture, that's the point where you should consider changing the ISO (or at least that's what I do.)
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i have lived with 64 and got by with some kind of support...
or left the shot alone
 
mrcrow said:
i have lived with 64 and got by with some kind of support...
or left the shot alone
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That's a fair comment, and if support is available, I would use it. I use ISO 100 because that's as low as my current camera will go. I don't think I could let a shot go though, for want of upping the ISO to give me a ueseable shutter/aperture combination.
 
there's a really good book at Amazon

"Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson - excellent

has a companion "Understanding Shutter Speed" - but dont know it
 
jimmy83 said:
Ok, as its taking me a while to change the settings before each shot changing the ISO will also take more time(can I set the ISO to auto, if poss)? How people get all the settings ready before each shot amazes me especially as some shots you have to be really quick to capture that moment! :thinking:
Click to expand...

It's not has hard as it seems to catch the moment, it's all in the preperation. I'll use when I'm out walking around shooting birds as an example.
I know that when shooting birds I want to use a wide aperture, my reasons for this are controlling the depth of field and getting as much light as possible to the sensor. Because this is my primary consideration I will put the camera in AV mode and set my desired aperture before I set off.

I then only need ot adjust the ISO to keep the shutter speed acceptable enough for the birds. This is something that I monitor frequently. On saturday I started out pre dawn knowing I would need max ISO so set 1600 - as the sun came up I would check and adjust accordingly - I do this just by pointing the camera at something in the light I expect to see the birds in and change as neccessary.

By doing this 'continuous' monitering of my settings it means that I am ready, when the moment arises, to lift and concentrate on getting the shot right (As against getting the settings right). Since I started doing this my photography has improved - I know when I hit the deck for a shot that my camera is set up properly.

As you can probably see, knowing what you are giong to be shooting makes this much easier.
 
Just adding to the ISO debate, I used to want to leave mine at 100 thinking i'd get the best quality. In the end, all I got were blurred shots, which were useless.

In my opinion, it's much better to ride the ISO and keep the shutter speed up, so you get a sharp shot, even if it is at the expense of a little noise. Often this can be reduced in post production, but unless you're doing massive prints, it's rarely a problem and the only people who will notice it are other photographers (i recently found some photos from my point and shoot from last year, and noticed noise for the first time - never noticed it before I got 'in to' photography).

Experiment with the ISO settings and see which setting you are prepared to go to. On my Canon 40D I will use ISO800 indoors, 1600 is just a little bit too poor for my liking, but I have had to resort to using it, and even though the quality wasn't amazing, I got the shots I wanted.

:)
 
on the 400D there is no auto ISO, you have manual selection of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600.
 
on the 400D:
iso 100 & 200 are excellent quality
at 400 the noise is becoming noticable when viewing at 100%,
800 can be ropey, noise becomes significant at 100%,
1600 only if desperate, at 100% its ghastly, and noise is visible at normal viewing sizes but it does allow you to take amazing shots not otherwise possible

Richard makes a good point though, keep the iso up higher rather than lower, its improtant that you keep the shutter speed at reasonable levels to avoid the movement blur that wrecks shots worse than any amount of noise.
 
MatW said:
Just adding to the ISO debate, I used to want to leave mine at 100 thinking i'd get the best quality. In the end, all I got were blurred shots, which were useless.
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Why were you getting blurred shots though? It wasn't because you were at ISO 100. I use ISO 100 film all the time.

It is more likely a poor choice of aperture which will demand a slow shutter speed.

Either open up the aperture to use a faster shutter speed or use a tripod to avoid movement.

Fifty years ago people used to regularly use ISO 50 and ISO 25 film hand held so there's not really any excuse for blurry pictures when using ISO 100.


Steve.
 
I've got loads of soft & blurred photos hand held on film at iso 100 & 200. :lol:
 
Steve, I'm not sure what you are getting at with your questions.

Surely the reason is fairly simple. The reason they are getting blurred shots at ISO 100 is because the shutter speed is lower than the speed they can hand hold the camera at - or because the shutter speed is too slow to freeze the subject motion.

I guess it comes down to choosing your subjects wisely and making sure you have douns technique to capture them. Personally I know that my handholding limit with my 300mm lens is about 1/60th for an acceptable image but for the best sharpness I aim for 1/125. I know if I go outside of these speeds I either need extra support or I need to up the ISO.
 
RichardtheSane said:
Surely the reason is fairly simple. The reason they are getting blurred shots at ISO 100 is because the shutter speed is lower than the speed they can hand hold the camera at - or because the shutter speed is too slow to freeze the subject motion.
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That's my point exactly. ISO 100 isn't a reason for blurred shots, it's something else.


Steve.
 
Sorry, I wasn't implying that you always get blurred shots at ISO100, not at all, and I regularly use it when I can.

What I mean is, when light levels start to fall and you've opened up the aperture as much as possible, if you remain at ISO100 in AV mode, the shutter speed will drop and eventually you'll struggle to get sharp shots.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
with a lens with a max aperture of f/5.6 you don't get a quick shutter speed at iso 100, or even 200 :D

quick check outside in the garden just now, its bright, light covering of patchy snow on the grass, I'm getting about 1/15s at f5.6 (max aperture on 18-55 non IS 400D kit lens at 55mm) on iso 100.

Would I be able to get a sharp hand held shot with the way I wobble about? . . . no, not even leaning on the wall and nailing the kids to the tree :thumbsdown:.

Explains all those years of attempts at kids or rally cars :bang:
iso 100 gives slow shutter speeds with cheap glass

of course now I know i'd need wind the lens up to f8 as its a bit soft at 5.6 :eek:
 
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