From when you take your first photo to now, your goal was, more than likely, to have a "properly exposed" photograph. This photo was by the textbook. While being technically correct, this did not create very many opportunities to be more creative.
I have to admit that when I first started using my camera that using manual mode was out of the question. I restricted myself to either Aperture Priority mode, where the camera chooses the shutter speed for you based on what aperture you have selected to program mode, which is basically an automatic mode that allows you to set things such as ISO.
With Aperture Priority mode, it did a decent job of getting the correct exposure on most photographs. However, there are times that you need creative control and need to be able to choose the shutter speed and the aperture. By choosing the shutter speed, I can make sure that motion is conveyed by blurring whatever I am taking a photo of, but what if I want good depth of field too? Thats where being able to choose your aperture as well comes in handy.
In the photo above, I knew that I wanted the motion to be shown. I wanted the lines to blend together. I needed a very slow shutter speed to be able to capture that motion, but to be able to get that lower shutter speed, I had to have a very small aperture.
Most newer cameras come with a built in exposure meter. This invaluable tool is what makes using manual mode so easy and intuitive. If you look in your viewfinder, you will see a small area that has a plus and minus sign, and several bars in between with a larger vertical bar in the middle. When you point your camera at various subjects, you will notice that the bar either fills up toward the minus or the plus sign. If you adjust your shutter speed and aperture until neither side is being filled up, you will have a "correctly exposed" photograph.
I pointed my camera at the ferris wheel, and with a low shutter speed, I had the entire area toward the plus sign filled. This told me that my photograph would be very overexposed. I knew that the shutter speed had to stay slow enough to convey the motion, so I began to adjust the aperture until the built in exposure meter indicated that I was just slightly underexposed. It had slightly filled the area toward the minus sign. The picture above is the one that I achieved by taking those steps.
Mnual mode offers many creative opportunities. If I had wanted to adjust that picture even more, such as make the sky a bit darker, I could have used a slightly higher shutter speed, which would have resulted in an even more underexposed photograph, or used a much smaller aperture.
Now, you may have noticed that your camera has numerous options for evaluating the light in a scene. My Nikon uses Matrix metering, Center Weighted metering and Spot metering. This is what tells your exposure meter it should do. Depending on the situation, you will select one of the above. Lets say that I used Spot metering. Using the ferris wheel as an example, I knew that I wanted the ferris wheel to be exposed correctly. I pointed the center autofocus point toward the ferris wheel and adjusted my settings until the built in exposure meter told me that I was just slightly underexposed. When I moved the camera to compose my photograph, the center autofocus point landed on something else in the scene. The exposure meter immediately began to tell me I was under or over exposed more than the ferris wheel. Because I was able to set my aperture and shutter speed using manual mode, I knew that the camera wouldn't automatically adjust to compensate when I moved the camera.
Give manual mode a try. I am positive that it will result in you becoming for comfortable with your camera and as a result seeing more photographs that you will enjoy.
