This Month: Manual Exposure

Why going manual isn’t as hard as you think.

MANUAL exposure mode, which is indicated by the M on a camera’s mode dial, requires you to set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO in order to make an exposure. Actually, you can leave the camera to handle the ISO, a feature which we’ll come onto shortly, but you still have to be on your game when it comes to deciding on the best combination of aperture and shutter speed to get the effect you want. It’s not all about the brightness of a picture, you see, but the look that different apertures and shutter speeds can give the image.