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Conundrum... Auto Modes Or Manual Settings?


tdierikx
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Of course it does. I only had the most basic understanding, notes on the back of my hand. ISO lets in more or less light, enabling the shutter speed to be faster or lower, which controls whether things are sharp or blurry. Little f stop numbers mean less is in focus and there is more light getting let in (allowing a faster shutter speed), higher f stop numbers mean the opposite. Understand that and the rest will come :) Try, try and try again until it becomes second nature.

I think it's getting over thought.

Edited by huga
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For sure. I could be a weirdo that way. I tend to learn by doing :) Second shooting weddings actually, and I was very lucky to have the opportunity to do it that way.

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I know exactly how you feel T

I have read heaps, watched heaps (youtube is great) and written down cheat notes that live in my camera bag.

I go out and practice taking random stuff around the house and yard and some works but most don't and I have no idea what I am doing wrong and it is very frustrating :(

I would love to do some courses but alas funds don't stretch that high.

I also take a lot of action shots and normally leave my camera on sports.

I have learnt so much in just a couple months and am hoping I can learn this too :)

Leanne

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I'm on Facebook Snook... and a link to anything that could help this complete eedjit out would be awesome!

I think I learn better nowadays by doing rather than reading - but in order to get started with the doing, I'm having to do at least some reading of the various settings that I need to become familiar with... and that's where I'm coming undone and getting overwhelmed... and basically stopping before I get the motivation to actually start doing.

T.

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.... Do you have the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson by any chance?

And that would be without question the best most useful sentence in the whole thread. Libraries are free. The book is a classic, has changed the (photographic) life of several dolers. Because it makes the matrix understandable, lightbulb stuff.

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.... Do you have the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson by any chance?

And that would be without question the best most useful sentence in the whole thread. Libraries are free. The book is a classic, has changed the (photographic) life of several dolers. Because it makes the matrix understandable, lightbulb stuff.

Yep. I was going to say the exact same thing. My husband had tried to explain it all to me so many times but it would just not sink in. This book was a godsend. I got a notepad and wrote a few things down as I read it. Did the little experiments that the book talked about and it all fell into place. :thumbsup:

Also I love Digital Photography School on Facebook. They have lots of great stuff on there from the very basics through to advanced stuff.

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I did one of those community college 'know your camera' type courses way way back. One of the best 'lessons' was:

Pick an object that is static but moving - like a fountain

Take a photo with the lowest aperture setting, then take a pic with the next lowest, and then the next lowest, working up to the highest.

Check the difference

Then do the same with the shutter speed

It was a really good visual lesson in what you can see with focus, depth of field, background, and a lot of other technical words I no longer remember :)

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Of course it does. I only had the most basic understanding, notes on the back of my hand. ISO lets in more or less light, enabling the shutter speed to be faster or lower, which controls whether things are sharp or blurry. Little f stop numbers mean less is in focus and there is more light getting let in (allowing a faster shutter speed), higher f stop numbers mean the opposite. Understand that and the rest will come :) Try, try and try again until it becomes second nature.

I think it's getting over thought.

This!

Just take your camera into your garden, you have plenty of dogs to be willing models I'm sure :) Pop your camera onto M and take some shots - that's the whole beauty of digital - you can take a shot and see the results instantly and adjust to suit.

I thought the following looked useful - http://centralphoto.weebly.com/slr-flow-chartexposure-app.html

5209400.jpg?948

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Guess who's going whale watching on Monday?

Forcast is for yukky wet weather - so heaving seas and rain... methinks not a good place to start practising manual shooting... *grin*

Might find some time before then... if there are breaks in the long weekend usual yukky weather.

T.

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Of course it does. I only had the most basic understanding, notes on the back of my hand. ISO lets in more or less light, enabling the shutter speed to be faster or lower, which controls whether things are sharp or blurry. Little f stop numbers mean less is in focus and there is more light getting let in (allowing a faster shutter speed), higher f stop numbers mean the opposite. Understand that and the rest will come :) Try, try and try again until it becomes second nature.

I think it's getting over thought.

That sounds like me too Huga - if I wanted a nice portrait with blurry background I needed a small F number. If I wanted something moving fast I needed a high shutter speed. SO I started with aperture or shutter priority depending on what I was wanting and let the camera think about the other things. Then when I had that I started to add in ISO changes and later exposure compensation.

I looked things up when I wanted to do something in particular. It never made sense when I tried to just read about it.

And the benefit of digital is you can sit there and look at the EXIF data afterwards and see what you did. I would even go back to pics taken on auto and sports etc and see what the camera did with them so I could try and do the same.

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