Why should you learn to shoot with a manual transmission when playing photography? When playing photography, many photographers will suggest that we should learn to shoot with manual transmission, including the same truth for recruiting photographers. Take driving as an example: people who are familiar with manual transmission will not have a big problem driving an automatic transmission car, but those who drive an automatic transmission to a manual transmission may not be handy.
Like cameras, there are automatic transmissions and manual transmissions, among which automatic transmissions are divided into fully automatic P or Auto gears, and semi-automatic A and S gears. With the development of digital technology, taking pictures is easier and easier. We don't even have to learn any skills about exposure. We only need to point the camera at the picture and then press the shutter to get a photo with accurate exposure and clear focus. Using aperture priority or shutter priority allows us to control the picture according to our own ideas.
But it's not that manual transmission is meaningless. It's true that there are many fewer occasions where manual transmission is used now. Unless some landscape photography or architectural photography that require accurate exposure requires fine-tuning of manual transmission, most of the time automatic or semi-automatic mode can fully meet our shooting needs, but just like driving, knowing how to master manual transmission still has only advantages and no disadvantages.
As the name implies, manual transmission means that we have to fully control the exposure. What kind of picture we can shoot depends entirely on the control of each parameter we have. Use reasonable parameters to shoot the picture effect we want.
I remember that when I first started taking pictures, the cameras I used (all traditional mechanical film machines) all had no metering and no priority gear. They all relied on the Sixteen Rules of Sunlight to estimate the current light needed. Although there was no guarantee that it was so accurate every time, but due to the high tolerance of negative films, the photos taken would never be too far off. It wasn't until I used a camera with aperture priority, and then a fully automatic PS camera that I completely broke away from the full manual operation. However, the experience accumulated during manual operation has always been in my mind, which allows me to complete the exposure more appropriately even in an environment without metering. Under the circumstances, what kind of exposure combination should be used in the current environment.
When we talk about manual mode, we are actually talking about exposure. When we talk about exposure, we are actually talking about the control of exposure triangle. Photography hasn't changed much since its birth. In essence, it is the control of the effect of light on the sensor element, and this control is achieved by controlling the aperture, shutter and sensitivity.
It is by controlling these factors that the manual transmission controls the amount of light that can act on the photosensitive element and how to act on the photosensitive element through the lens. Of course, in modern digital photography, there will be some special technologies.
On the premise that the lens is certain and the position of the subject is determined, if we want to control the depth of field, we need to control the aperture. The larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field, and conversely, the smaller the aperture, the wider the depth of field. Therefore, if we want to shoot a blurred background, we need to open a wide aperture, and if we want to shoot a photo with multiple subjects in a certain depth range in the focus range, we must reduce the aperture so that the depth range is within the depth of field range.
If you want to capture motion blur, or freeze objects moving at high speed, you need to know how to control the shutter to achieve the desired effect in our hearts. Similarly, we also need to know the concept of safety shutter. In handheld mode, at least what kind of shutter should be selected according to the currently used lens to prevent the picture from shaking.
The sensitivity of digital camera is different from that of film. The sensitivity of film is fixed. Higher sensitivity may bring rough particles, but most of the particles of film show a regular artistic sense. Sometimes, although they are rough, they look quite good. However, the noise caused by the high sensitivity of digital cameras is different. The noise is a messy white spot, which looks like the snowflakes of the old TV at home, which greatly affects the look and feel of the photos. Therefore, when improving the sensitivity of digital cameras, you must have a certain understanding of your camera, and know how much sensitivity range you can accept the noise.
In fact, we think that using manual shooting mode is more of a learning process. During this learning process, we can understand the principle of light source and what settings need to be used to deal with different environments.
