365-5 move to m

I am FAR from a professional when it comes to photography. But I have read some books, looked at the works of others, and dabbled about just a bit. One of my goals is to move out of the auto settings and into manual more often.

There were some awesome clouds tonight and while I was outside, I decided to get a shot of the corner of our house with the Christmas lights still up. The sky wasn't entirely dark and I liked the deep blue backdrop. I often leave my camera on P so that I can pick it up and shoot something quickly, without having to think about it. So I took my picture in P mode (program - everything sets automatically, but no flash).



Of course, the camera metered for the dark scene and decided that the shutter should be open for a very long time - like 3.2 seconds. And since the tripod was in the house, you can see the effect that had. Very blurred. Pale sky. Not so good. So I popped it over to M (manual) and set the shutter to 1/4 of a second. No reason to let in a bunch of light. I wanted the deep darkness in my picture. The indicator was showing me that this would be WAY too dark. It was blinking away at me. But I ignored it. Because although my camera is pretty smart, sometimes I know more about what I want than it does.



While it's nothing frame-worthy or anything, I still like it. It's the result I wanted. The one that happened only when I moved to M. Give it a try.

If you're looking for a helpful read when it comes to using M, check out Bryan Peterson's book, Understanding Exposure.