Manual Mode

[oliver&sophie]

Hello,

I have had my dslr for about 2.5 months now. I purchased the Canon Rebel xsi and have the 18-55 mm kit lens as well as the 50 mm 1.8.

I am trying to learn to shoot in manual mode. What I love to shoot is kids. Mine, others. Well I am new to this but I have spent many hours on forums, and am trying to learn as much as I can.

My problem is that my pictures taken in manual mode are too soft. I am using the 50 mm 1.8 for these which I know should be sharp. I am using natural light. I currently set my ISO to 100 outdoors and between 200-400 inside depending on the light. I have to open the aperture up wider inside since my house does not get as much light and outdoors I usually stay between F8-F11. I have set just one AF point and focus on the eyes. For shutter speed I have been just moving the dial till the meter is at 0. So what am I doing wrong. The pictures are not blurry, so I don't think I am shaking. They are just soft and I tried pping them but they still don't seem as sharp as they could be. Could you please give me some advice or other tutorials that you have read to learn to shoot manually.

Another question when I use AV or TV the light meter is never centered at 0, is this the way it is supposed to be. Remember that I am new.

Thanks
Amanda

[JeffreyG]

Hello,

For shutter speed I have been just moving the dial till the meter is at 0.

Another question when I use AV or TV the light meter is never centered at 0, is this the way it is supposed to be. Remember that I am new.

Thanks
Amanda

I don't have any good suggestions on your softness issue except to state that it is probably not related to your exposure mode. Post some examples for accurate help. Minor motion blur can indeed look like softness. What aperture and shutter speeds are you using specifically? This is why we need examples.

Now to M mode. What you are doing (chasing the needle around to -0-) is not really shooting M mode. You are really working in a sort of crippled Av mode where the camera needs you to fill in the action of adjusting the shutter speed. The path is slower than Av but the result is exactly the same. M mode typically means metering the light (incident) or a tone (reflected) and then making specific decisions on how you want to expose that light or tone.

As for the Av/Tv question, the meter needle isn't cenetered because you have dialed in some exposure compensation. Look this up in the manual to change it in the future.

[oliver&sophie]

Ok, I see what u are saying because I am letting the camera choose the shutter speed for me. Plus half the time it is never fast enough for taking kids pics but when I change the shutter speed to what I would like, the light meter is always off. I have no problems with sharpness in auto but obviously I am doing something wrong and being new to manual I am just learning. Thanks for the reply. :-)

Here are some pics. Remember nothing fancy. I am a beginner. First one was shot in auto and second in manual. http://photos-843.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v310/145/80/736691843/n736691843_1143607_2250.jpg

http://photos-h.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v310/145/80/736691843/n736691843_1229319_2446.jpg

[Tiberius47]

Have a look at the link in my signature, it has some tutorials about how to adjust aperture and shutter speed. Should help you with manual mode.

[oliver&sophie]

Thanks JeffreyG, I reread your posts and several others on this forum and I think that I have finally got it, or at least I hope so. I think what my biggest problem was not choosing a high enough shutter speed. My kids are on the move. I am gonna practice, practice and practice some more and I think that I will get it.

[JeffreyG]

I'm not seeing the shooting information (EXIF) from your pictures. Either resave (not 'save for web') and re-post them or just manually jot down the ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture from the second one and report that in this thread.

Minus that info, when I look at the second shot I think I'm seeing a very shallow depth of field due to shooting the lens wide open coupled with a very slight miss in focus accuracy.

Shooting primes wide open leaves zero margin of error, and the 50/1.8 is not a consistent performer for AF accuracy.

Ok, I see what u are saying because I am letting the camera choose the shutter speed for me.


Right. If you are just obeying the meter shot to shot to shot you can stay in Av mode a work a lot faster. M is for when you want to lock in the exposure based on a light meter, a metered tone or just chimping the histogram and then stick with that value. Most people shooting M stop looking at the little meter once set up (some never look at it at all).


Plus half the time it is never fast enough for taking kids pics but when I change the shutter speed to what I would like, the light meter is always off.


This means it is too dark for the settings you have selected. Try this order to shooting:
1. Pick the aperture you want to use for DOF
2. Pick the shutter speed you are comfortable with to handhold (or for the speed of the action)
3. Check the meter, or take a shot and check the histogram.
4. Adjust ISO until the exposure is correct (or the meter is centered.....however you want to work it).

Now, if you wind up at ISO1600 and it is still too dark then you have to make compromises. You can:
1. Open up the lens and live with less DOF
2. Try to make a slower shutter speed work (take lots of shots cause you will get less keepers)
3. Add flash

[oliver&sophie]

Thanks so much for the reply. You have explained this great for a newbie like myself. I fully understand now thanks to you. It was later in the afternoon and a cloudy day when I took these so there probaly was not enough light for a higher shutter speed. I did have a shallow dop. My settings were:

1/40 sec (Which I am sure was not high enough, and I may move a little)
f/3.5
ISO 200 (I could have put this up higher)

I am gonna try to up the ISO next time so I can have a faster shutter speed or consider using a flash as my house tends to not have the best light.

Thanks Again

[JeffreyG]

Thanks so much for the reply. You have explained this great for a newbie like myself. I fully understand now thanks to you. It was later in the afternoon and a cloudy day when I took these so there probaly was not enough light for a higher shutter speed. I did have a shallow dop. My settings were:

1/40 sec (Which I am sure was not high enough, and I may move a little)
f/3.5
ISO 200 (I could have put this up higher)

I am gonna try to up the ISO next time so I can have a faster shutter speed or consider using a flash as my house tends to not have the best light.

Thanks Again

Given those settings, you had a lot of room to move. Let's talk about the options.

To start with, the 1/40 is really pushing it for slow with a 50mm lens on an XSi. It would not surprise me if 1/40 was just blurry enough to soften the shot but not so blurry that you could see the clear blur movement in the image.

The rule of thumb should have you trying to stay at above 1/80. I personally really dislike blurry shots so I tend to double the rule of thumb when I can....so I might have tried this shot at 1/160.

On a technical note, 1/80 is one full stop faster than 1/40, and 1/160 is two full stops over 1/40.

You were at ISO200. One really quick fix would be to simply go two full stops faster in ISO. 200 => 400 => 800 is two full stops. As an aside, I almost never shoot below ISO800 indoors, even with flash.

If you have a reason to say...stay below ISO400 then you could do a mix-n-match. You could do one stop with ISO (200 => 400) and the other with a wider aperture (f/3.5 => f/2.5).

Finally, note that you could not quite have gotten all the way there with aperture. Your maximum f/1.8 is 1 and 2/3 stops faster than f/3.5. Also, the more you open the lens up the shallower the DOF will be. Also, IMO the 50/1.8 isn't really at it's best for sharpness below about f/2.8....though I'd use that if I needed it. Slight lens softness beats motion blur anyday.

[Persephone]

So M mode is not about trying to shoot for the center...excellent, now i don't have to feel guilty that I'm not "using the full potential" by shooting in P mode.

Today I tried metering for the face in M mode and found it most excellent that they came out much better than my P mode pictures, where they were dark.

[oliver&sophie]

Thanks Again JeffreyG for the information. It has been very helpful. I really dislike blurry pics as well.

[Hedley]

So M mode is not about trying to shoot for the center...excellent, now i don't have to feel guilty that I'm not "using the full potential" by shooting in P mode.


It's up to you of course, and I certainly don't want to appear snobby or preachy, but there is a gulf of control you give up when choosing P mode over, say AV mode. If you want to alter the depth of focus for example you'll have to venture into those 'creative' modes in the end.