Plenty of people have manual options on their cameras but don´t understand how to use them to the full advantage. I have created a printable cheat sheet for manual photography. Click on the link to view it online and download it as a pdf if you are interested in printing it out. Enjoy http://fotografiadelecuador.com/blog/2012/06/manual-photography-cheat-sheet/
Nice idea. Your exposure diagrams are "wrong" though, at least for my camera, where the + is on the left and the - on the right. Minor quibble though. I do like that you say "perfect according to the camera", because I find my photos often look underexposed if I use "dead centre". Maybe it's me, or maybe it's my camera. Maybe it's just my monitor.
@joreasonable Nice, easy-to-read cheat sheet, well done. I would, however, drop that rule of thirds from there, because it has nothing to do with manual mode. It could be replaced with metering modes, shooting modes, white balance modes, or such.
Very nice. May I share a further tip? The slowest handheld speed to avoid blur (unless you have stabilisation on the camera or lens) is considered to be 1 divided by the focal lenght of the lens (as a 35mm equivalent). So my standard lens on my Fuji is a 50mm equivalent so that means 1/50th of a second is the slowest speed I should use hand held to avoid blur. If I used a 200mm telephoto then 1/200th of a second would be required. This is only a guide...but it sure helps avoid bad shots in manual mode
@Cheesebiscuit I have a Nikon D300 and with that camera I can configure which end the "+" and "-" show up in the displays and also which direction to turn the thumbwheels to change aperture/shutter speed up/down and in fact which wheel does which function. I had a Pentax K10D previously and everything on the Nikon was back-to-front compared to the Pentax, which I used exclusively in fully manual.
hello, i am new and have a question, i love to take pics but seem to accidently take nice photos and would love to be able to save them to the computer with the information on a tab or on the photo that tells me what my camera settings were when i took the photo so i can be able to learn what i did and how to improve. does anyone know of any tips to be able to do this? thanks
@mycamerabag the information is always there even after you download the photos to your computer, it depends on what program you use as to where to find the info, the information is called exif data.
@TheMysteriousMrBiscuit if your photos are looking underexposed when exposing for dead centre, maybe it has more to do with the subject your photographing? From what I understand it's not always best to shoot for the centre but rather it's helpful to use the Zone System. This system uses 11 zones where Zone 0 is a pure black scene, Zone X pure white and the zones in between are different brightness levels. Zone V is in the middle and is where the 18% grey lies. You don't necessarily always want to expose for the middle though because this 18% value might not be the best exposure for what you are photographing. For example, snow will look grey because the camera tries to expose for the centre but based on the Zone system snow resides in Zone VIII. So, aiming for the centre actually underexposed the snow by three stops. Anyways, excuse me if you already knew this but I found it very interesting and helpful for manual photography when I learned about this. Here is a link and a good podcast explaining the Zone System: http://clickitupanotch.com/2013/01/zone-system-the-basics/ http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/tag/zone-system/
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thanks, glad I could help out.
@benedictine Thanks for commentin
thanks =)
@nathanheustis thanks for commenting Nathan
@ginnykoppenhol thanks for the tip.
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Can anyone help me get the cheatsheet? TIA.
Sorry for any problems
http://clickitupanotch.com/2013/01/zone-system-the-basics/
http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/tag/zone-system/
I'll post the link again to avoid the same problem. :P
http://www.fotografiadelecuador.com/tutorials/manual_photography_cheat_sheet.pdf