Lesson One

Going off the Grid

Well, not the grid grid, but the program grid. That is right. Lesson one, I’m going to throw you in the pool, but i’ll give you some floaties. 

I don’t care if you shoot Nikon, Cannon, or .... whatever. You have probably been shooting in program mode long enough and we are going to explore a little setting i like to call M. 

M for Manual, M for me! 

When you put your camera in M mode (don’t worry, it is not going to blow up!) this will allow you to completely control your settings. What f stop you are shooting at, how fast your shutter is clicking, your ISO, and flash. There may be a few others, but these are going to be our main focus for right now. For the next few weeks, I will teach you a little bit about each of those settings so you will have a better control over your camera but for week one we are going to start off easy. 

But I don’t carry a light meeter with me. 

That’s ok, I don’t either (please don’t tell my teachers that!)  Our camera has a built in meeter. Now, this is the inside of a Nikon viewfinder, but if you are using a different camera it should look similar. 

(Image taken from http://mansurovs.com/) 

This little circled part is going to become your new best friend. If the lines are heavy on the right, then your image is underexposed (dark) and if the lines are heavy to the right of 0 then your image is overexposed (light). You will want to either adjust your aperture or shutter to bring the lines as close to 0 as you can. 0 is going to be your happy place and hopefully a perfect exposure. 

(It may take a while for your lines to move, depending on how far over they are. If your image is underexposed, try either making your aperture bigger (smaller number) or making your shutter last longer (bigger number). If you image is overexposed, well, try the opposite) 

As for your mini-challenge this week? Simply shoot a photo in Manual mode. Practice balancing out your exposure. Even if it is just one shot. And then you take the rest on a program mode. Good luck, and be sure to link a photo in the comments.