Photography / Camera chat thread.

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

I think I shall stick to the MBK speak advice thread....brain hurts now..

Lol, i know what you mean, you ask a simple question

A year ago I felt the same, I read filipes posts and almost decided against getting a camera, it all looked too technical
Now I can understand probably 50% of his posts, which for me, is a big step forward

question, can you always improve the picture using the manual controls, if you know what you are doing, as opposed to using the auto setting.

Speci....my issue is that my brain seems to get confuddled with numbers being involved, it takes me a good few attempts at reading it before I start to get what it means.

Originally Posted by specialone

A year ago I felt the same, I read filipes posts and almost decided against getting a camera, it all looked too technical
Now I can understand probably 50% of his posts, which for me, is a big step forward

I know a little bit of what he says, not stuff about particular kit as have never used it, or even seen it, lol. Though yeah, can make you want to point and shoot.

Originally Posted by bluefishman

question, can you always improve the picture using the manual controls, if you know what you are doing, as opposed to using the auto setting.

I never use auto, always manual, that way you learn what settings work.
Sometimes I will take a pic in auto or one of the other presets and look at the info on what the camera decided it would use, then go into manual and it gives me a point to start, I'll then tweak it a bit when required.

Originally Posted by bluefishman

question, can you always improve the picture using the manual controls, if you know what you are doing, as opposed to using the auto setting.

Think about it this way: the auto setting is just like driving a car / bike with an automatic gearbox. Can you always do better than what it is doing on it's own?

It will depend on the situation. The current cameras are very good at calculating the correct exposure and will nail it 90% or so of the time. It's the other 10%, and usually the trickiest situations, that they will fail. Think overtaking on a tight spot, if you're waiting for the car / bike to downshift one or two gears from top when you smash the throttle then you're probably screwed...

On the other hand, if you already know what you want to do beforehand, then you'll know exactly when and how to do it, and you'll do much better than the auto thingy could ever do.

Back to photography, even within those 90% where the camera nails it, maybe there is something different you wanted to do in the first place, like darkening the shot just a smidge to deepen the colours, or lighten it up because there's something in the shade that needs to be pulled up...

Taking the camera out of the automatic settings is really all about control, and making you think about what you want to do before you press the shutter, instead of just going click.
This doesn't mean you need to go full manual, of course. It's all about taking control of at least one thing exposure related. I shoot 75% of the time on A mode, where I can control my aperture. I let the camera decide the shutter speed, and then I'll override it (when I deem necessary to do it) with the EV +/- control.

I see what you mean guys, i recon some of it comes down to how much time you have to get the shot, if your shooting a mountain the it's not going anywhere, but the weather could change, and you loose what you were trying to take, so only change what you have to, s'pose practise and knowing what you want beforhand allow you to set it up for each instance.

Ok, another one, you know those brill pics you see on calenders, posters whatever, so a lot of the colours may have been enhanced with filters, but is most of the stuff, effects done on the computer, ie do you really need whatever editing softwhare people use?. just seems a bit fake imo, i would rather have 100 or 1000 not so good pics, and one really good one that has not been touched, that you can say i took that, if you know what i mean.

Everybody post edits, I generally don't.
I feel the same as you mate, I prefer to capture the shot as I seen it, but one could argue the settings you use are a kind of faking it also.