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The Importance of Manually Setting Your Digital Camera

The manual settings on your camera are very important if you want to take great photographs. It's no good just flicking the switch to auto and snapping away. This is because the camera itself only has a computer program that tells it, mathematically, how to configure it’s settings. In other words the camera has no creativity whatsoever, and it that means it is up to you to be the creative by manually configuring your camera settings.

Focus is probably the first auto setting that you probably use 99.99% of the time. It's easy right? All you have to do is press the button half way down to focus and then push it all the way down to take the picture. However, what if you accidentally focussed on the wrong thing? Well, there goes another potentially great photo into the rubbish bin.

Manual focus is best used when you want to take a photograph of something that is in the background or behind some trees, for example. This is because the manual focus enables you to avoid accidentally focussing on the foreground. However, if the object you want to shoot is in the open and nothing is in the way then just use the auto focus. When there is no obstruction the auto focus is actually preferred because it is quicker and more accurate.

The second manual setting that comes to mind is the aperture settings. This includes both F-stop and shutter speed. F-stop (or focus stop) is basically the range of focus. The higher the F-stop value, the higher the range of focus; however, it will make the photograph darker (i.e. the aperture will decrease). The F-stop setting is very useful to play around with because you can be creative by choosing to either blot out un-important objects or choose to have many objects in focus.

The shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter of your camera opens and shuts. The slower the shutter speed, the more light will be let into the sensor and, the faster the shutter speed, the less light will be let in. In other words you want a fast shutter speed in intense light and a very slow shutter speed in low light. This setting is very useful for taking night shots because you can let in plenty of light to the sensor for great night shot.

Both F-stop and shutter speed can fall under the category of aperture because they both effect the brightness and contrast of a photograph. The aperture on your camera is often represented by either an ‘aperture histogram’ or an ‘aperture ruler’. To get well-balanced aperture you need to get the majority of the histogram’s area in the centre of the graph. If the highest point of the histogram is to the left it means that the photo will be under-exposed and if it is to the right it will probably be over exposed. Likewise with the ruler, you want to get the marker on the ruler in the centre for ideal aperture. Play around with aperture settings to get a feel for how you need your settings in different situations

There are many more manual settings such as ISO settings and white balance; however, they can be learned easily with any good tutorial and the ones above are generally the most important. It may take some time to get used to configuring the settings fast; however, over time you will get more efficient with manual settings. Remember though; don’t miss a good shot because you were stuffing around with the manual settings for too long.

Now get out there and take some great shots.

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