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Food Photography & Blogging Tips Health & Lifestyle

Learn How To Use Manual Mode On A DSLR Camera With This Easy Photography Tutorial

 

Last week I did a post Learn How To Use Your DSLR Camera With This Easy Photography Tutorial!

In order to understand todays post, you need to read last weeks post and do the homework/exercises that I ask you to do.

Trust me when I say practicing will help you better understand your DSLR camera.

I strongly urge you to review last weeks post and spend a week practicing and getting to know your camera a bit more. If you already have done your homework 😉 then you are ready to move on with this post.

So last week we focused on 3 major areas of your DSLR cameras: ISO, shutter speed and aperture.  

To recap, I had you practice using shutter priority mode and aperture priority mode.

Today I want to move you one step further and talk about exposure compensation and Focusing. By the end of this tutorial,  you will be ready to shoot in manual mode.

 

What Is Exposure Compensation?

 

So just what is exposure compensation?  Exposure compensation (labeled below “exposure control”) is a way to adjust the exposure in your pictures.

Lets take a look at this in the diagram below.  Notice the “0” and the little line beneath it.  “0” is suppose to be just the right exposure.

Suppose we are still working in aperture priority or shutter priority mode.  Oftentimes it can be a little dark or a bit to bright. Here is where you would adjust the exposure to fit your needs. 

If you want the picture to be a bit brighter then you would move the line under the “0” to the right or towards the plus side.  If you are wanting the picture darker, then you will move the line to the left or to the minus side.  

You move this line by adjusting your black main dial shown below while you are holding down the AV button (look in the picture above, the button is to the top right of the LCD screen).

I oftentimes shoot my picture at a +1 because I am shooting indoors a lot with my food photography. Sometime when I want to warm a photo up, I will darken the picture slightly by moving into the -1 area. This allows you the freedom to create the picture you are envisioning in your head a little easier!  

Take a look at the photos below.  The middle photo was shot at “0”.  I took the photo next to a window so it was a little bright.  If I move the dial down to “-1”, look how much better that photo looks.  On the flip side if you move it up to “+1” it is way to light.

Do you see how beneficial this can be to creating a better picture?

Side note: I just love my trusting dog who always allows me to shoot her as an example 😉

 

 

 

 

 

Learning How To Properly Focus Your Camera

 

There is one more important element to learning all about your DSLR camera and that is learning how to adjust your focus to work for you not against you.  Don’t worry, it is super easy to comprehend.

When focusing on food photography, we oftentimes work with a shallow depth of field.  We work so hard to get a certain part of a picture in focus only to get discouraged when that part is actually blurry.

It might be beneficial to take your camera (not your lens) out of auto focus.  Check with your manual to see how to do this (lookup “manual point selection”), but it really is quite simple.

When you look into your view finder, you will see something like this.

image courtesy of dslrgeek.com

If your camera is set on auto focus (which is default) then the camera will pick where to focus.  When shooting food photography you often want a certain item in focus and this can be hard to accomplish with such a wide area to focus.

You can change your settings to “manual point selection” and this allows you to pick any one of these boxes (in the above view finder picture) to have as you focus point.  Check out this picture below.

I wanted the chocolate soufflé on the right to be in focus and then the remainder of the picture to blur out of focus.  So I changed my manual point selection to be on the far right so that the item on the right would be what the camera focused on.

You can also keep the manual point of selection in the middle and then focus on what you want to be in focus and move your camera to fit the picture in the frame that you desire.

Just make sure you just move to the right or left or vise versa and not forward or backwards.  Moving forward and backwards would mess up the focus.  With a little practice you will have it down in no time.

 

 

Shooting In Manual Mode

 

You now have all the pieces to the puzzle!  You have practiced using your ISO, shutter speed and aperture. You understand what the exposure compensation is and how to focus properly.  You are now ready to tackle manual mode!  Simply turn your mode dial to “M”.

The only way you are going to get comfortable with manual mode is to practice, practice, practice!  

Start by setting the aperture and shutter speed.  Practice and see where your cameras sweet spot is.  I found it best to start by shooting outside.

To start, have your ISO on auto so the only two elements you have to worry about are the aperture and shutter speed.  Once you get those two down then take your ISO off of auto. You now are fully operating in manual mode.

Pay attention to your exposure compensation and adjust to fit your exposure needs.

Don’t be afraid of manual mode…you can create amazing pictures while working in manual mode.  

 

 

More Great Photography Post ~ Photography, Equipment, Props & More

 

Click here to view our Entire Series of Food Photography, Equipment, Props & More! 

 

top image credit :learningdslr.com


Halle Cottis/Whole Lifestyle Nutrition is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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Comments

  1. KabochaCoconut says

    December 6, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Another great tutorial! Simple and clear! Thank you, I shared this with my family 🙂 I always forget about the “selective focus” mode- am going to play around with it some more 🙂

  2. Lauren Hill says

    December 6, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    I learned so much from this post!  Thank you so much, I finally am getting my camera!

  3. PBX says

    December 7, 2012 at 1:06 am

    This is very helpful for me who wants to buy an slr but only knows how to use a point and shoot.

  4. Rafaa says

    December 23, 2013 at 4:33 pm

    I am really interested in Macro photos, and i have Sony A55, I need to take photos of flowers, leaves, stems, etc.
    could you please help me how to set the camera to get a great photos of my sony please, also i have Tamron 90mm>
    I really appreciated your tips.
    Thanks a million

  5. best nikon digital camera says

    April 22, 2014 at 11:59 am

    Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your website?
    My website is in the very same niche as yours and my users would
    certainly benefit from some of the information you
    present here. Please let me know if this okay with you.

    Cheers!

  6. Ree says

    January 13, 2015 at 3:38 am

    Great Article! I love food photography and often faced problem with auto focus! Now i know what must be done. Thanks!

  7. Love says

    June 8, 2017 at 8:56 am

    Great articles, thank you for sharing

  8. liza says

    June 30, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    thanks a lot, it was so simple, so easy to understand and so helpful.

    • Halle Cottis says

      July 1, 2017 at 7:49 am

      Happy to help Liza!

  9. mark says

    September 29, 2017 at 7:51 am

    Hi…enjoyed your articles and very helpful. I am new to photography and Im thinking of opening a real estate photography business. Is there a camera you would recommend specifically for these types of photos?

    thanks
    Mark

    • Halle Cottis says

      October 2, 2017 at 2:32 pm

      Hey Mark. I think you need to look at finding the right lens for real estate. Usually, a wide angle lens is preferred. Also, lighting is everything with getting good real estate images, so you might need to invest in some lighting gear. And of course, a tripod is a must!

  10. Christian says

    December 20, 2017 at 12:08 am

    Thank you for making it so simple.

  11. Georgy says

    April 21, 2019 at 6:54 am

    It’s very good for me. Thank you very much for the detailed instructions. I hope I will succeed to make 🙂

  12. Vikrant says

    April 29, 2019 at 10:44 am

    Thanks for the further knowledge about manual mode

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small head shotWelcome! I'm Halle Cottis.

I'm on a mission to liberate women who are not living true to themselves to walk into life being EXACTLY who they were meant to be. I believe that women should put themselves first. When you choose yourself today, amazing things can happen.  I'm glad you're here! ❤Learn More →

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