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 Larry Kelly has been taking photos for many years. He refined his skills as an amateur photographer and went digital in 2006. A retired environmental law enforcement officer, he enjoys photography, writing, and coaching others. He can be contacted at lwkelly113@gmail.com. |
| Want to learn photography really quickly? Take one month and only shoot in MANual mode. Few things scare new, or even experienced, photographers more than taking the camera off auto mode and switching to manual. What? Leave the safety of letting my little black box DSLR do all the thinking for me? Just the thought of it would make my pulse pound and my palms sweat. The thinking that my camera was doing for me, however, was not giving me the quality results I wanted. It was one of the best things I ever did for my photography. Now I had to slow down and think about each picture and what I wanted to achieve. I was responsible for making the aperture (f stop), shutter speed, and ISO (light sensitivity) settings work together to get the picture. The instant feedback of digital photography, both successes and mistakes, rapidly led to a big jump in the quality of my photos as I learned how to get the picture I wanted more often. Using MANual mode in this way to quickly learn is useful for landscapes, portraits with a cooperating subject, and casual practice shooting. Sports, candid shots of the kids, or other action type photos really need the assistance of automation while you are learning. It is possible to shoot these photos using manual mode, but in my experience it’s better to use aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, or even full-auto for these challenging action shots. I won’t kid you. You will make a lot of mistakes in the beginning. But if you keep at it, pay attention, and learn from digital’s immediate feedback you will improve. You may be pleasantly surprised at how rapid the improvement is. In Part 2 of this article I will show you how ridiculously easy it is to use manual mode. So take a deep breath and turn thatdial to MANual mode. Take control, do the thinking, and take better photos. |
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20 lucky winners will win $500 each in prizes totaling $10,000. 