It’s so easy to slip into the habit of using one of the Priority modes, or even Auto. I used Aperture Priority mode for the first couple years I had my camera, I loved it, I could choose the depth of field by adjusting the aperture and let my camera do the rest.

Then one day a lightbulb went off and I realised that shooting in Manual is only one little adjustment – two if you’re currently shooting in Auto. I challenged myself to shoot only Manual for a week and simply forgot to switch back. In fact when I was on a shoot a little while later I decided to use my old-faithful Aperture Priority to make it easier while I was shooting, the lack of my new-found control frustrated me so much I switched back to Manual and haven’t used anything else since!

So here’s how.

First of all we go back to the Exposure Triangle: ISO, aperture and shutter speed. I’ll show you how to pick the settings for each of these to make it easy to achieve balance and the perfect exposure every time.

Light Meter

Your camera’s internal light meter will be how you judge the light in your scene. You will go by this to choose your settings.

If the light meter shows that your scene is underexposed you can simply adjust one of the settings to allow in more light, if it’s showing as overexposed you can adjust the settings to allow in less light.

If you’re not sure how much it is  under or over-exposed, simply take a photo and look at it in the back of your camera and make the adjustments based on what you see there. At first this will be trial and error, but soon it will be second nature.

ISO

This is the aspect of this triangle that has the least impact on the particular aesthetics of your image. Choosing an ISO tells your camera how fast you would like the light to be absorbed by the sensor. A low ISO makes for a nice clean image, while a high ISO adds noise to the image. Digital noise isn’t the prettiest thing, so for the most part we’ll try to keep the ISO as low as possible.

For this example I’ll be shooting a portrait outside on a slightly overcast day. ISO 100 will be a little too low for the light I’m getting, but ISO 200 should be just fine.

I select my ISO and leave it. I shouldn’t have to touch that again unless the light changes dramatically, or unless I decide I want to change it for creative reasons.

Aperture

I love my wide apertures and narrow DoF, so for me personally the main thing is to get my aperture set to a position that will give me the look I want in the final photos. In this case I think I’ll go wide open for a lovely buttery soft background, so lets say f/1.8.

I select my aperture and leave it for the time-being.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the last of the settings I put into place. For the most part the only thing I worry about with the shutter speed is that it is fast enough to avoid any motion blur, and that it’s high or low enough to balance out my creative choices with the other settings and give me a perfect exposure.

For this instance I think the light requires me to select a shutter speed of around 1/600. I take a test photo and, oh, a little too dark. I adjust the shutter speed one stop to 1/500, much better. Now as the sun comes out from behind the clouds or disappears further in all I have to do is adjust the shutter speed.

Balance

Now it may be that I decide I want to change the settings, perhaps I want a slightly wider Depth of Field. If the exposure is correct before I make the change all that is needed is to increase the light from the shutter speed the same amount of ”stops” as I decrease the light from the aperture.

For instance if I was to close the aperture one full stop, taking it from f/1.8 to f/2.5, closing out one stop of light, I would also slow the shutter speed one full stop, taking it from 1/500th of a second to 1/250th of a second, allowing that one stop of light in using the shutter speed to balance out the smaller aperture.

This way I’m able to get exactly the same amount of light on my sensor, but am allowing myself creative choices in the way I do so.

Tricking the Light Meter

Sometimes the light meter is just plain wrong, whether it’s dazzled by snow or an open window, or confused by a dark patch in the middle of your scene. You may find that you need to tell the camera to go ahead and take photos that the light meter is sure are wrong. And this is where shooting in Manual comes into its own.

With one of the Priority modes you would need to use your Exposure Compensation button/dial to tell the camera to purposely over/underexpose the image. When you’re shooting in Manual you can quickly adjust whichever setting you like to make this fix yourself with much more control.

Conclusion

With a little practice you’ll soon be wondering how you ever shot in anything other than Manual. You’ll have more control over your images and a practical understanding of the exposure triangle.

An added bonus is a far simplified post-processing workflow with an even exposure throughout all your images. If you use batch editing software such as Adobe Lightroom, you could easily knock half the time off your workflow.

Have fun, and feel free to get in touch with any questions whether by email or in the comments below!

So imagine my excitement the other day when I stumbled across a newish sequel!

A little more co-ordinated; just as much fun.

I hope they brighten your day like they do mine!

What videos inspire you and make you laugh?

Anyway. Today’s experiment was about properly understanding focal length. Not the science behind it, that’s for someone a little more technically minded (I bet my brother could explain it to me after a few minutes of research), but rather about the effect our focal length choices have on the images we take.

I’m aware that I love the look of certain lenses (my beloved 85mm 1.8 for example), while others just don’t inspire me so much, but I’ve never shot with each lens in turn to really understand what they do to the scene in front of me.

For this experiment I set up the camera on a tripod so it would remain at an even height throughout and I asked my brother to stand in one spot without moving an inch. As well as the angle of field, I wanted to demonstrate the effect that focal length has on depth of field, in other words the way the background softens with longer focal lengths, so I set the camera to stay at f/5.6 no matter which lens I was using. In this way the background would only be affected by the focal length and not the more usual method of changing the aperture. The only exposure setting I adjusted while shooting was the shutter speed to work with the light when it changed slightly due to the sun.

Before I show you the pictures it’s worth mentioning that I’m shooting on a Canon 550D with a multiplier of about 1.6, so technically all these focal lengths are the equivalent of slightly higher than I’ve labeled them (30mm becomes 48mm, 85mm becomes 136mm etc) and the same lenses on another body may look a little different, but the relative difference between each focal length remains exactly the same.

With each focal length change I had to take a step or two back to keep the composition as similar as possible. And this is what I got…

18-55mm kit lens:

(Photo taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Sigma 30mm 1.4:

(Photo taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Canon 50mm 1.8 (a.k.a. the “nifty fifty“):

(Photo taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens:

(Photo taken at: 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Canon 85mm 1.8:

(Photo taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

And back to the Sigma 70-300mm zoom for the rest:

(Photo taken at: 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 800)

(Photo taken at: 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 800)

(Photo taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

And here is the widest photo next to the longest photo for a comparison:

(Photos taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800 and: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Looking at these it’s easy to see why telephoto lenses are often considered “portrait lenses”. There is less distortion on his face, and the soft background even at f/5.6 makes the subject become the main focus of the image.

But my favourite part of this experiment was finally really understanding what it means when you hear that telephoto lenses “compress” the foreground and background. I’ve understood it in theory but haven’t seen a before/after example in my own photos before.

Let’s look at the side by side again:

(Photos taken at: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800 and: 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 800)

Look at the tree over his shoulder in the first photo, then look at it again in the second photo, it seems to have moved forward about a dozen or so metres, or in other words, it has been compressed! I had no idea quite how dramatic the effect can be, but now that I’m aware of it I will certainly be using this knowledge while planning future shoots.

I’m planning more forays into the world of focal length. In the meantime, what’s your favourite lens or focal length? Which do you not like so much? Email or comment below and let me know!

We walked by the sea in Brighton…

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

…and found a pretty doorway. Most of that hair of mine is gone now, weird!

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

Back at home, Becky made us some tea…

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

Then we took Molly for a walk down the pretty Cuckoo Trail.

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

(Taken with Pentax K1000 on expired Fujifilm Velvia)

I love film, sea, tea, and nice walks with friends.

We arrived in true style by underground.

Dan’s on the left here with the shiny shiny shoes, and Jiva’s on the right.

We made the most of the late summer light and took a few photos outside the venue while we were waiting for the evening’s music to begin.

Having great subjects makes life so much easier for a photographer.

Dan.

And Jiva.

And then it was time for them to kick off the evening’s entertainment with their set…

They played wonderfully, of course, and a good time was had by all.

The event in question was a cocktail party hosted at the stunning home of internet entrepreneurs and generous philanthropists, Michael and Xochi Birch, in order to bring several international branches of WildAid together to share news and inspiration.

While the stone lions stood guard at the door, preparations were underway inside…

Guests began arriving; dressed to dazzle.

Xochi (on the left) and Michael Birch (second from right) offered their guests warm hospitality while everyone happily mingled, then the guests of honour arrived.

First in was Vivek Oberoi, Bollywood actor and ambassador for the Indian branch of WildAid.

He was followed shortly by Yao Ming, former NBA basketball player and ambassador for the Chinese branch of WildAid, where one of his current campaigns is to end the slaughter of sharks for their fins by raising awareness in China.

Yao Ming spoke with Peter Knights (Executive Director of WildAid) and a few supporters.

Then the ambassadors of India and China met at last.

Yao Ming dwarfed everyone in the room with his impressive 7′ 6″ stature.

We saw the latest awareness videos that WildAid had produced, featuring celebrity ambassadors such as Vivek Oberoi, Jackie Chan and Leonardo DiCaprio.

And Peter Knights told everyone about the work that Wildaid has been doing around the world over the past year or so, as well as what is lined up for the near future.

He then handed over to Yao Ming, starting off the discussion by explaining that Yao Ming endured a terrible trauma as a spectator at the Olympics, when China had been defeated by Team GB earlier that afternoon in their first Olympics basketball win since 1948!

Yao Ming showed some videos from his recent travels as WildAid ambassador. He spoke about the challenges they face, but also some wonderful triumphs that are beginning to manifest.

Then it was Vivek Oberoi’s turn to talk about his hopes for the future of WildAid’s work…

…and to show that he’s a WildAid supporter through and through.

A little photo-op with Peter Knights, Yao Ming, Vivek Oberoi and Tykee Malhotra, also from WildAid India.

And then yes, I had my photo taken with the charming Bollywood star too.

The evening wrapped up with a low-tech raffle to win a beautiful aluminium wildlife print.

And everyone drank their final drinks and began filtering away home, ending another happy and inspiring evening.

I find it wonderful to see charity members and supporters so dedicated to doing what many merely brush off as being impossible, and to see accounts of the success that happens when people strive for what’s just out of reach.