There is life outside Auto Mode
A lot of people buy their dSRLs and tend to take pictures only on full auto mode. It seems sometimes that the mode select dial is even jammed, leaving no option but that green square. If you are one of these, I have a few words for you.
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Although auto mode is useful, it can’t predict what you want. It will just try to take that regular shot, and regular is boring. So my advise is : go Manual. Ok, you don’t need to go straight to full manual shot mode, you can try the Aperture Priority Mode and Shutter Speed Priority. They will basically allow you to select one of the camera’s parameters and calculate all the others so you’ll get the right exposure for that shot.
Capturing Time
Photographs are point moments of time, right?
Wrong.
Photographs are small amounts of time recorded on a single frame. When you press the button, the curtain will remain opened allowing light to go into the camera and hit the image sensor ( or the film in old cameras ) for a given period of time and then, close. That time frame is controlled by Shutter Speed, and generally, varies from 1/8000th of a second up to 30 seconds. When you work on Shutter Speed priority mode, you will be able to select the shutter speed you want, and your camera will try to balance aperture and ISO to make sure the correct amount of light will hit the sensor, which means getting a correct exposure. I won’t get into details of exposure here as I plan to dedicate a full article to discuss it.
Now, time is in your hands. You can set shutter speed to low values (which means letting the curtain opened for longer) and get a much more dynamic picture when there’s motion involved, like this tram in Bern, Switzerland.
The picture above was taken with a shutter speed of 1/4th of a second, enough time to capture the motion blur of the tram. Obviously, tripod will be your friend on shots like this.
You can also set shutter speed to high values and capture pictures with the feeling of frozen time.
The picture above was taken with a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second and captured the water falling in a way we can’t even notice with our eyes. The picture below used a 1/1600th of a second shutter speed and froze the dolphin in the air and the water splash made by its jump.
All these shots are be very unlikely to be taken in full auto mode, which will put shutter speed at the “safe” zone of 1/30 to 1/500 .
So that’s it. Spin that dial and be creative.
Israel Lot.
