Manual Exposure and buckets of water

I had a student with me the other day who was really keen to get to grips with the 'M' (Manual) exposure mode on his Nikon D60. She felt - with some justification - that having the ability to set the camera's exposure herself would enable her to get better photographs. Well, I explained that this would not necessarily follow as there are many other elements that go into creating a good picture. But I did tell her that an understanding of, and familiarity with, the manual settings on any camera would certainly mean that she would have more control and, eventually, she would be able to interpret a scene in her own way. This can often lead to better pictures.

The problem was that as she had kept the camera on a program mode for most of her photography in the past, she had little understanding of shutter speeds and aperture settings and the way they must work in harmony.

I tried very hard to explain in the simplest possible way that, for instance, an exposure of 1/125sec at f11 lets into the camera exactly the same amount of light as an exposure of 1/25osec at f8. This was part of the age-old problem that f numbers do not work logically for normal people. The fact that big apertures mean small numbers and small apertures mean big numbers is enough to confuse anyone.

And then I remembered a really old chestnut of an explanation...

With much theatrical acting, I placed an imaginary and very full bucket of water on the table in front of us. This, I said represented the correct amount of light to expose our picture correctly. The water was not sloshing out (over-exposed) nor was the bucket half full (under-exposed), it was full to the brim. Just right.

There were two ways of filling that bucket with a hose pipe (more acting) - I might use a big wide hose pipe (wide aperture) and fill the bucket very quickly (fast shutter speed). Or I could use a very small diameter hose pipe (small aperture) and trickle the water in very slowly (slow shutter speed).

Either way, I got the same amount of water in the bucket (or the same amount of light in the camera).

It worked like a charm - the penny dropped and from that moment my student understood a concept that had been totally confusing her. I do like simple.

I've posted a fair bit about using manual exposure in the past, so you could try these pages if you want to learn more...

http://philipdunn.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-use-manual-mode-part-2.html

http://philipdunn.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-use-manual-mode-part-1.html

Photography student's success

Photograph by Margaret Laurie

It’s always a huge pleasure for me when I hear that I have been able to inspire someone and set them on the right track.

Margaret came to one of my weekend workshops here in Kirkcudbright in SW Scotland earlier this year. The other day she emailed me hardly able to contain here excitement because one of her photographs had been accepted for publication in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. This is what Margaret said:

“You helped a lot to inspire me to take more photos, and give me some confidence to send my photos into the paper.

“This photo was taken a couple of Fridays ago at the beginning of May. We live in Ferryhill, Aberdeen and I'd woken early with the sun streaming in through the window, and out of the window saw this fantastic sunrise. I went across the road and that was the view from our street at 5.30am! I took loads of photos while my husband, and daughters were tucked up snugly in bed. The view looks over the rooftops towards the River Dee as it flows under Victoria Road bridge to the harbour then out to sea. The smoke on the right is from an offshore supply vessel. The cranes are all at the docks and the tiny dots are notorious Aberdeen seagulls! I loved the way the cranes and the aerials were leaning towards each other.

“My camera is a Nikon D80, exposure set on manual at 1/1600sec, f7.1, ISO 200, WB set on ‘Cloudy’. The focal length was 112mm.

“The weekend workshop in Kirkcudbright with yourself gave me the oomph to do something with my photos. As you can see I now use my camera in manual, and that's pretty much 99% of the time, and experiment with the white balance, and still take B & W.”

Very well done, Margaret. You have every right to be very proud of yourself. I can still remember the buzz I got from my first publication – and that’s a very long time ago.

Might I have done things differently? Well, perhaps I might have used a slightly different exposure setting, but Margaret has achieved such a beautiful result that any alterations would only amount to fine tweaking.

By using the ‘Cloudy’ White Balance (WB) setting, Margaret has added to the yellow/orange glow from the early morning sun. Great idea. With so much light available, I might have used a ISO 100 for maximum image quality, stopped the aperture down for extra depth of field (this part depends on what Margaret was wanting to capture; maybe she wanted limited depth of field), and used a slower shutter speed. This would have given an exposure of roughly 1/500sec at f11. 1/500sec should be quite fast enough to eliminate camera shake when using a lens with a focal length of 112mm – which on the Nikon D80 is equivalent to about 180mm.

Keep ‘em coming, Margaret. Very well done!