Manual exposure mode - when do you use it?

Bill Burk · Sep 28, 2017

How about this scenario... you're out shooting with a friend, setting up kind of the same shot and you ask "hey Tom, what settings are you using?" And Tom says 1/30 at f/5.6

So you figure you trust your buddy and set your camera at 1/8 and f5.6 because he's shooting Kodachrome 64 and you're shooting Panatomic-X with a yellow filter.

Yeah it's been a few years since I did that but you couldn't ask for a better friend... and Manual mode

phrons · Sep 28, 2017

I only shoot manual mode when I have to.

Which is mainly all of my cameras except for DSLRs and the F3.

My MF gear is all manual.

faberryman · Sep 28, 2017

Bill Burk said:
How about this scenario... you're out shooting with a friend, setting up kind of the same shot and you ask "hey Tom, what settings are you using?" And Tom says 1/30 at f/5.6

So you figure you trust your buddy and set your camera at 1/8 and f5.6 because he's shooting Kodachrome 64 and you're shooting Panatomic-X with a yellow filter.

Yeah it's been a few years since I did that but you couldn't ask for a better friend... and Manual mode

Well, if you don't have an auto exposure camera, or a meter, and you trust your friend, it's either that or Sunny 16.

E. von Hoegh · Sep 28, 2017

My last auto exposure camera was an OM-4 (sold in 1992 or 3), I used that quite a lot in manual mode because it was simpler and faster than compensating. Previously, an OM-2, used in manual when compensation was necessary because it was too easy to forget to return the compensation to "0".
Now, I'm so used to the meters in my "center the needle" cameras that I do it by reflex, compensating as well.
The more one thinks about exposure, the fewer bad exposures one gets.

Craig75 · Sep 28, 2017

Bill Burk said:
How about this scenario... you're out shooting with a friend, setting up kind of the same shot and you ask "hey Tom, what settings are you using?" And Tom says 1/30 at f/5.6

So you figure you trust your buddy and set your camera at 1/8 and f5.6 because he's shooting Kodachrome 64 and you're shooting Panatomic-X with a yellow filter.

Yeah it's been a few years since I did that but you couldn't ask for a better friend... and Manual mode

Shooting like a boss in T priority mode

Les Sarile · Sep 28, 2017

faberryman said:
Your response is unclear to me. Are you saying that shooting manual vs. automatic is not a personal preference? And which way is a more personal experience and why?

You missed the context to what I responded to. Olyman said that the vibe he got from this thread was that it was a personal preference which is clearly not how I responded to initially.

With regards to your question, I suppose if you get mostly well exposed results in automatic mode, you may be personally compelled to keep using autoexposure. However, if you know the latitude of the film, you recognize that the scene requires override or that you want to achieve a particular exposure then I suppose you would choose to use the mode based on personal experience.

tomfrh · Sep 28, 2017

OlyMan said:
What's the attraction?

Set and forget.

E.g. Shooting some family pool photos the other day, using provia. I dial in manually until the aqua blue water meters at +1.5. Then I know it will expose properly, regardless (unless light changes)

In auto mode it will keep changing, and get it wrong half the time.

Bill Burk · Sep 28, 2017

tomfrh said:
Set and forget.

E.g. Shooting some family pool photos the other day, using provia. I dial in manually until the aqua blue water meters at +1.5. Then I know it will expose properly, regardless (unless light changes)

In auto mode it will keep changing, and get it wrong half the time.

Exactly, that's just it.
In auto mode every shot will be exposed "differently". Even if they should be all exposed the same.

Bill Burk · Sep 28, 2017

faberryman said:
Well, if you don't have an auto exposure camera, or a meter, and you trust your friend, it's either that or Sunny 16.

In that scenario, (as if you could possibly know), Tom had an OM-2 and I had an OM-4...

Even with an automatic camera I'd spend time "deciding" what the exposure should be. Even if I just clicked anyway, I'd think for a minute and ask myself if it was right. And I'd bounce my thoughts off my buddy who was doing the same.

tomfrh · Sep 28, 2017

OlyMan said:
Modern digital cameras too for that matter

It's a bit different on digital, because ISO can change on the fly. I often shoot M mode with auto ISO on digital, i.e. Shutter AND Aperture priority.

MattKing · Sep 29, 2017

On the subject of "compensation" I believe the OP is using that the same way I do.
We don't bracket. We look at the scene, evaluate its reflectance, dial in a single compensation adjustment for that scene, and take a single shot using that compensation adjustment.
This works really well with aperture priority automatic.
Its quite manual, even if we aren't in "manual" mode.

blockend · Sep 29, 2017

tomfrh said:
Set and forget.

E.g. Shooting some family pool photos the other day, using provia. I dial in manually until the aqua blue water meters at +1.5. Then I know it will expose properly, regardless (unless light changes)

In auto mode it will keep changing, and get it wrong half the time.

Well said. In high contrast situations I'm typically shooting one-and-two-thirds of a stop underexposed for the look I want. Automation would try to find detail in the shadows and bleach out faces caught in sunlight, making the shot lack any drama. I was a late adopter to digital - it's still a minority interest - but I imagined exposure automation had somehow caught up, silly idea but digital had run 15 years with me still shooting film exclusively. I was disappointed to see how bland my first aperture priority DSLR results were. Went back to manual and the shots were fine. No doubt the latitude of the latest cameras mean people "fix it in post".

Commentators suggest manual exposure is some kind of retro activity for dial twisters. it's just a very quick way of nailing a shot, but you have to know what you want.

OlyMan · Sep 29, 2017

@Kevin Ekstrom: To clarify, I wasn't talking about bracketing. I was on about undertaking the exact same thought process you're talking about and using it to decide on an exposure compensation on top of the camera's suggested exposure, which more times than not will be within ±2 stops. So we end up with the same result via a different route, that is all.

@Bill Burk: great example, there's no way I would have thought of that though because I pretty much always shoot alone.

Craig75 · Sep 29, 2017

I have a minolta spotmeter,a weston euromaster, a phone app, and 4 cameras with meters by 3 different companies but i have no idea how any of those meters are calibrated - 18% 14% 12% ?

zanxion72 · Sep 29, 2017

I always use metered manual exposure mode. I find it quicker to compensate +- from the metered value this way than using any exposure compensation controls which I usually tend to forget them at the last used state.

darkosaric · Sep 29, 2017

phrons said:
I only shoot manual mode when I have to.

Which is mainly all of my cameras except for DSLRs and the F3.

My MF gear is all manual.

same here

faberryman · Sep 29, 2017

blockend said:
Well said. In high contrast situations I'm typically shooting one-and-two-thirds of a stop underexposed for the look I want. Automation would try to find detail in the shadows and bleach out faces caught in sunlight, making the shot lack any drama.

Let's say your meter reads 125th sec at f5.6. How do you manually set your film camera to one and two-thirds of a stop underexposed?

Anon Ymous · Sep 29, 2017

faberryman said:
Let's say your meter reads 125th sec at f5.6. How do you manually set your film camera to one and two-thirds of a stop underexposed?

Even if your camera doesn't support intermediate shutter speeds, or your lens doesn't have clicks between full stops, you can just set the aperture at any point in between. Not perfectly accurate, but does the trick.

guangong · Sep 29, 2017

The only cameras that i consistently use in auto exposure are my Minox C and Minox LX because they are almost always used for quick spontaneous grab shots. Otherwise, even with Minox I use a III or B. Most of my normal format cameras are manual without meters. Auto everything cameras are battery dependent and always die at the wrong time. Oh, forgot about my Contax T3 that is always on auto and use exposure compensation button when using filters. Always carry a spare battery.
As this thread reveals, there is more than one way to determine exposure and often the situation doesn't offer a choice. The famous photographs by Genthe of the San Francisco earthquake were taken with a Brownie box camera. No opportunity to fiddle with exposure. Only academics would contend that there is only one (their) way to take a picture. What is more important is the eye and mind behind the camera.

blockend · Sep 29, 2017

Anon Ymous said:
Even if your camera doesn't support intermediate shutter speeds, or your lens doesn't have clicks between full stops, you can just set the aperture at any point in between. Not perfectly accurate, but does the trick.

Correct. AF cameras typically have metering readouts that show in variable increments. Fabberyman doesn't want an answer, he pursues every post I make with a silly comment.

Rick A · Sep 29, 2017

OlyMan said:
Ok if your camera only has a manual mode, or has no meter, then I guess this question is moot.

Thinking of those cameras with both a manual mode and aperture or shutter priority, so that's most SLRs. (Modern digital cameras too for that matter.) When do you find you use the Manual mode? I.e. where you set both the shutter speed and aperture, as opposed to letting the camera choose one or the other? On my cameras, it's next to never really, obviously except the OM-1ɴ.

I tend to use the built in meters, so if I pick eg F/8 and in Auto the camera says 1/125th, I don't feel I'm really adding much to the process by being in Manual mode instead and dialling-in 1/125th on the shutter speed dial.
If I want a particularly slow shutter speed, eg 1/8th, I'll use Auto mode and close the aperture until I get 1/8th in the viewfinder (say F/16 for sake of argument).
In manual mode, I'd select 1/8th on the shutter speed dial and close the aperture until the meter tells me the exposure is correct, which would be the same F/16.

So same outcome, but an extra step all the time.

What's the attraction? What have I missed all these years? The only thing off the top of my head is it probably makes exposure compensation a tad easier. But I tend to be happy using the dial for that. EDIT: Oh and my OM-2SP only offers spot metering in manual mode, so I have used manual on that a bit, but that's an unusual exception.

My first cameras were manual only and no meter. I still shoot this way. I own a couple light meters, but rarely use them and rely on my intuition. There's a meter in my OM-1, but I almost never use it. No meter on my Zeiss Nettar , again I rely on intuition. I do use my incident meter with my LF cameras, more rarely a spot meter. I can't blame anything or anyone else but me for outcome.

dynachrome · Sep 29, 2017

I tend to use manual exposure when I use a Canon New F-1 because in Aperture Priority mode there is no way to lock a reading.

wiltw · Sep 30, 2017

Why manual mode? Well, think of this situation...Bright sunny cloudless day, 11 players on one team wearing white jerseys, 11 players on the other team wearing black jerseys. As you tightly frame certain key players/action for different shots...

sometimes you have predominantly white jerseys in the frame
sometimes you have predominantly black jerseys in the frame
sometimes you have an even mix of white jerseys and black jersitys in the frame

...so

the suggested camera meter reading is sometimes ISO 100 1/100 f/16 (situation 3),
sometimes the camera meter suggests ISO 100 1/100 f/22 (situation 1), and
sometimes the camera meter suggests ISO 100 1/100 f/11 (situation 2).

...but the 'correct exposure' is UNCHANGING -- an incident meter reads ISO 100 1/100 f/16 all afternoon -- because the sun is always out and never hiding behind clouds! So youj set a manual controlled camera to ISO 100 1/100 f/16 at the beginning of the game and leave it there -- for hours -- unchanged.

rpavich · Sep 30, 2017

OlyMan said:
Correct, but I find it easier just to dial-in +1.5 on the compensation dial, which is right or thereabouts.

And this works too. If you get to the same destination as manual, then that's no big deal.

My thing is this; if I'm the only one in the car with a steering wheel and gas pedal and brake, I can't ever be surprised when a passenger tries to run us off the road I see the camera's auto mode as a passenger that you have to spend your time thinking about while driving because you never know when they are going to lose it and grab the wheel. If you just kick all of the passengers out and you are the only one driving, it simplifies the task. that's why I shoot manual (unless it's my Oly Trip 35 then I don't mind because the Trip is like a well behaved passenger who asks before steering and always makes a good turn!)

Minoltafan2904 · Sep 30, 2017

I pretty much only use Aperture Priority and Program on my Minolta X-700, i only use the Program mode in dull light as it's a shutter weighted system and can give much higher shutter speeds than Aperture priority when it's very overcast or after sunset.

Manual exposure mode - when do you use it?

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