Photography, a Balancing Act
1/250s, f/1.8 and ISO 100 vs. 1/50s, f/8 and ISO 200
Photography Is About Finding the Balance
When you shoot in manual mode, which you should always do if you give a shit about photography, every picture you take is the act of finding the perfect balance between aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
Finding out how much light you need, how much depth you want and is your subject moving. Deciding if you want most of the shot to be in focus and have as much detail as possible, or do you only want one subject to be centre stage and focused. Do you want the shot to be dark and moody or bright and happy.
Constantly rotating the dials for different combinations.
There is one disadvantage in shooting in manual mode. If the lighting conditions change rapidly, you might end up missing shots, but I think the automatic setting is just so bad and I hate the results with it, and I feel like it isn't my picture if the camera decided how it's taken. I like to be in control, if you haven't noticed that yet...
Shooting in RAW helps out a lot because it gives you a little more leeway if your settings are not perfect. It took me a while to understand the benefits of RAW, even though a lot of people told me to do it. I hate listening to advice, I just need to learn everything the hard way.
Try, Try Again and Learn
I've learned a lot about photography in the past 9 months because I shoot almost every day. I used to take a lot of test pictures before I got everything right, but I'm getting better every day and shooting is a lot faster when I already know approximately what settings I need.
After getting the hang of the technical part of photography, there is always the search of the perfect shot to take. Finding an interesting subject in a good light, getting the focus right and framing the shot.
I'm very passionately about photography and I love that there is basically an unlimited amount of things to shoot. I can't wait to visit more new places next week, and in the future, shooting in a new environment is always very inspiring. But no matter where I am and what I shoot, I always follow the light.
Shot with the Nikon D7200 and Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8.
Thanks for sharing this photography is very nice post
Follow the light!!
Always!!
I almost always use manual but when I'm on someone's party and friends want me to photograph everything then I'm usually on automatic. I'm on RAW+JPEG always, I see no point shooting only in JPEG, maybe people who never edit their photos then they don't need RAW format.
I didn't understand how much more detail a raw file contains. I was like njääääh, whatever, I can photoshop the jpegs too so I don't care! Oh how wrong I was!
Yup theres a reason why JPEG is about 5MB and same RAW about 40 lol.
wow ...
"Try, try again and learn"
Exactly this.
I am motivated by your post. Thanks for sharing.
My photography skills leave a lot to be desired. Your passion for photography really comes across in your article too. I only use my smart phone for photos but I do hope to get a decent SLR at some stage too.
Some people take pretty good photograph with a phone too, but I personally don't feel like I can do much with only a phone.
Good idea , I never think like that
I mainly shoot in Aperture Priority. I use a tripod a lot so I want to control my depth of field and the shutter speed is controlled by my aperture and filters. I let the camera do the calculation of the shutter speed. It doesn't always work but for 90% of shooting it's fine.
I try to avoid using a tripod when even I can. When I’m out shooting, I almost never bring my tripod, unless I want selfies 😛
Auto shots can be frustrating sometimes. I would agree that it feels like it's not your photo. We're on the same boat ^_^
Yes! Manual all the way! Yep, changing light is always an issue, but keep an eye on the light meter and you'll get faster every single time you shoot. Go for AV/TV/Auto and you'll never learn to speed up and rely on yourself!
Yeah, I use that as a guide a lot too :) learned it after having a camera for 5 years or so....