I only started shooting in Manual on my cameras earlier this year. It is actually incredibly simple and easy, providing you with much more creative control over your photos than shooting in any auto or semi-auto mode. It is also highly rewarding and satisfying when it makes a difference to the final result.
If you are shooting in Aperture or Shutter priority modes, STOP. Read this first and learn how to easily master shooting in manual exposure mode on your digital camera.
There are a tonne of articles, forum posts and videos online about the exposure triangle that talk about those mystical 'stops' and yet none of them made it simple enough for me to get my head around fully when I was starting out. It was only when I bought a Fujifilm X-T5, with the three parts of the Exposure Triangle visible as physical tactile dials that everything clicked into place fully and I finally understood and had the confidence to shoot manual.
So if you are a beginner or intermediate photographer that hasn't yet made the jump to manual shooting, or still don't understand what 'stops' are, then keep reading. I'm going to break it down as simple as I can, as someone who recently figured it out.
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| Fujifilm X-H2 |
The Exposure triangle
A photo is often referred to as an 'Exposure', as the process of taking a photo is exposing the Sensor or Film to light. There are 3 parameters that you can alter directly affecting exposure:
Aperture
How much light the lens let's in. A side effect of this is 'depth of field'. Aperture is Measured as an 'f/' number.
Depth of field is how much of your shot is in focus. A deep depth of field will have most or all of your scene in focus. Desirable in situations such as when taking a landscape photo. High f-numbers are used to create a deep depth of field: such as f/8 to f/16. A thin depth of field is the opposite, using a low f-number such as f/1.2 or f/2. Only the subject may be in focus, with everything else closer or further away out of focus and blurred. Take care though as sometimes it is possible to have a too thin depth of field - someone's eyes may be in focus but their nose may not be! Any Aperture setting in between will give you effects in between, such as the background only slightly blurred and able to make out some details for instance.
Different types of photo will determine whether you set you Aperture based on how much light or how much depth of field you require, it is often one or the other and occasionally both.
Shutter Speed
How slow or fast the shutter closes. Measured in seconds or fractions of second.
Faster shutter speeds freeze action. The faster something moves, the higher shutter speed you need to have a sharp photo. Birds may need as high as 1/2000 whereas walking people may only need 1/125. On the flip side, a slower shutter speed allows more light as there is more time for the light to hit the sensor. This is useful in low light and when there is nothing moving in your scene, or if you intentionally want the moving parts of your scene to have motion blur, which is a creative choice.
ISO
The camera's sensitivity to light. Measured as a number.
ISO darkens or brightens your photo. Increasing the ISO is increasing the camera's sensitivity to light by boosting the electronic signal. That's not important though, what is important is the effect high ISO can have on your image. Your lowest ISO is referred to as 'Base ISO' and is what will give you the best image quality. As you increase the ISO you may introduce noise or graininess to your image and the point that happens differs from camera to camera. My Fujifilm cameras for instance I like to keep below 1600 ISO but sometimes go up to ISO 3200 if absolutely needed, but the image quality really starts to suffer when you zoom in to look at details.
By shooting in manual you are controlling those 3 things to determine how your photo will look. The fun part is balancing each of the settings to get the desired result! More on that later.
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| A typical Camera 'PASM' dial |
Auto Modes
Auto modes on your camera take care of some of the parts of the exposure triangle for you:
- Auto: The camera will decide all parameters for you.
- Aperture Priority: You set the aperture and the camera decides the Shutter Speed and ISO.
- Shutter Priority: You set the shutter speed and the camera decides the Aperture and ISO.
Exposure compensation
Why you should not use Auto modes
Auto ISO
Auto ISO is the one automatic setting that is good to use when shooting in Manual. This is because in terms of creative composition, ISO has no effect. It basically acts like exposure compensation when controlling manually. If you want a correctly exposure image in terms of brightness, Auto ISO will be whatever it needs to be based on your shutter speed and aperture.
'Stops'
Anywhere you read, you will hear people referring to 'Stops'. I myself was very confused for a long time about what a stop was. They would refer to shutter speed stops, aperture stops, stops of stabilisation. How do they even relate to each other?
Simply put: A stop is half or double the light from the last stop.
Owning a Fujifilm X-T5 made it simpler for me as you can see everything you need to see. Below is an image of an X-T5 with the manual controls; an Aperture control ring on the lens, a Shutter speed dial on the middle right, and an ISO dial on the left.
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| Fujifilm X-T5 Top plate showing manual control dials |
It's very simple, the difference between one numbered marking to the next on the dials is: half or double the light.
- ISO 400 is double the light of ISO 200. ISO 800 is half the light of ISO 1600
- A shutter speed of 1/250 is double the light of 1/500. A shutter speed of 1/30 is half the light of 1/15
- An Aperture of f/5.6 is double the light of f/8, and half the light of f/4.
See, its easy! But how do you put it into practice?
In terms of how they relate to each other, it is very easy indeed. Let's look at the settings shown on the camera in the above picture, assume it is correct exposure for the scene. So the camera is at:
- Aperture f2, Shutter 1/250, ISO 400.
Scenario 1
A dog is running around and you are getting blurry pictures, so you need a faster shutter speed. You change it from 1/250 to 1/1000. That is 2 clicks on the dial, so 2 stops. To maintain correct exposure you will want to find the 2 stops somewhere else otherwise your image will be too dark. So you can either increase your ISO by 2 stops, from 400 to 1600, or change your aperture, but that is already at f2 and as open as it will go on this lens, so you have no choice but to increase the ISO to 1600 to achieve correct exposure.
Scenario 2
You want to take a nice photo of your friend in a popular place with a nice view. Your aperture is set to f/2 you are not going to see the view because due to the shallow depth of field, your friend will be in focus but the background wont be, and will be blurry. You need to close the aperture for more depth of field (more of the image in focus) so you change it to f/8. That is a whopping 4 stops less light, so your image is far too dark now.
Your choices are to increase your ISO by 4 stops from 400 to 6400, which will result in a noisy image with lower quality, or increase your shutter speed from 1/250 to 1/4000. There is generally no consequence to increasing the shutter speed so that would be the best choice. You can mix and match as well don't forget, so you could choose an ISO of 800 and a shutter of 1/2000 for example.
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How to start shooting in Manual
On a nice day in good light it's so very simple. Set your ISO to the lowest possible and start with an Aperture somewhere in the middle such as f/5.6 or f/4. Then set your shutter until the viewfinder/screen shows the image brightness to your liking and go shoot. At those settings your shutter will be high enough to freeze people moving. Then just experiment from there depending on what you are shooting, simply remembering that if you take a stop from somewhere, you need to give an extra stop somewhere else, and vice versa. Practice makes perfect.
Soon it will be second nature and you will be able to enter a scene knowing exactly what your starting parameters are going to be and how you prioritize them when making trade-offs. For example, a Portrait Photographer will prioritize a wide aperture (for a thin depth of field) and a low ISO (best image quality), with Shutter speed being less important. A Sports Photographer will prioritize shutter speed (to freeze action) then aperture (maximum light) over ISO.
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| A photo taken at a slow shutter speed of 1/4s handheld thanks to the 7-stops of stabilization on the Fujifilm X-T5 |
Some other common terms explained:
'Stops of stabilisation'
You will hear stabilisation, or 'IBIS' referred to in X-stops of stabilisation. All this means is that it keeps the camera stable enough for you that you could use a shutter speed slower by X stops than without stabilisation.
If you can handhold 1/60s without stabilisation and get a sharp image, then 5 stops of stabilisation in theory would enable you to handhold a sharp shot repeatedly at 1/2s.
'Enable you to keep shutter speeds up'
In situations where you need fast shutter speeds such as when shooting birds or sports, shooting with shutter speeds around 1/2000 is a heavy restriction on how much light you are letting in, often meaning your ISO needs to be high which can degrade image quality. When people are referring to lenses that 'enable you to keep shutter speeds up' they are referring to lenses with a wide aperture as it lets in more light. The difference between an f/4 lens and an f/2.8 lens may not seem significant, but the f/2.8 lens lets in double the light as the f/4 lens. This means you could double your shutter speed at the same ISO, or reduce your ISO by 1 stop for higher image quality.
Incidentally this is what people are referring to when they say a lens is 'Fast' or 'Slow'. Fast meaning it enables high shutter speeds via a large aperture, or slow meaning a small aperture making it less ideal for high shutter speeds.
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| The Fujifilm 50-140 f/2.8, a zoom lens with a fast aperture that allows fast shutter speeds |
In closing
It's a complex topic that becomes rather simple once you get your head around it. Once you know how the 3 parts of the exposure triangle affect your image, and you grasp my concept of 'give and take' with stops of light you should be well on your way to taking control and elevating your photography!
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