Manual mode basics

[Angry Perch]

My wife says she wants some close up pictures of plants in the garden to blow up and frame. I've always been an "Auto mode" guy, and not much of a "Read the manual" guy. I know that monkeying around with speed and aperature, you can get the subject clear, and the background blurred. Is there a basic setting(s) I can start with just to get an idea what I'm doing?
Canon EOS t3i
Any help would be appreciated.

[yajsab]

Probably best to post your lens info too.  Controlling aperture is what I used.

[Bean Counter]

Just use aperture priority. For the t3i, nothing is cheaper and easier to blur the background than the Canon 50mm f/1.8, affectionately known as the "classic plastic" aka "the nifty fifty" aka "the plastic fantastic." http://www.adorama.com/CA5018AFU.html Go buy it--now. You'll get a far better blur than the kit lenses. IMHO this should be the kit lens--its all I had for years and I learned more with it than a cheap zoom ever would have allowed me to learn. 

Using aperture priority will be good enough. Turn the dial on top to "Av" and crank your dial to to the left until its somewhere between f/1.8 and f/2.8. The plastic fantastic is decent wide open but sharpens the image up a bit when you stop it down. Adjust to taste.

Use of full manual mode is often reserved for the snoody and those wanting full control over lighting/exposure. Perhaps you have a backlit subject and disagree with the cameras metering system and know it should be darker or brighter. That's why you'd want to the extra hassle of full manual. That or so you can tell all your friends you shot it in full manual. but you'd own a Leica M9p if you were really into that 

[Bean Counter]

I know that monkeying around with speed and aperature, you can get the subject clear, and the background blurred.

By adjusting aperture, you control the depth of field. Use of a lower F-stop will "open up the lens" and give you a shallow depth of field. That's where you get that creamy background blur, that the Japanese refer to as "bokeh." If you don't get the amount of blur you want then either your subject is too close to the background or your lens doesn't have a wide enough aperture to create the shallow DOF, or both.

Using a higher F-stop will "stop the lens down" with a large depth of field. Everything will be in focus. Keep pushing it and stuff will again lose some sharpness with diffraction. This is also how you create sunstars (the moon over the pond I shot in this thread: http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,144917.25.html).

Use shutter priority when you want to control speed and motion. For instance, you want to blur a waterfall so you use a slower shutter speed maybe on a tripod, or you use a fast shutter speed to capture the water droplets your dog shakes off after going for a swim.

Here I was shooting some pals throwing horse shoes. I used shutter priority because I wanted to capture some essence of the shoe in motion. Exif Metadata: 1/80th of a second at f/5.6, ISO 100. Had I used a faster shutter speed the shoe would have been frozen, with no blur, and you wouldn't get the same sense of motion in the shoe flying.

[Bean Counter]

On the same picnic, I saw this little dude crawling on my chair. 1/800 of a second at f/2.8, ISO 100. The closer you are to the subject (focal point) the more inherently shallow the depth of field will be. I could have stopped the lens down a little more and still had a blurred background. As you can see the tail end of the insect and one of the antennae are outside the DOF and blurry. Amatuer mistake 

[Alchase]

Nice writeup Bean Counter!

If you have an iPhone there are a couple Apps that can help you figure out DOF

Simple DOF
Light Meter

And my favorite for determining the relationship between ev (environment)/f-stop/iso/speed:

Expositer

[jyerxa]

This is the manner at which I am trying to improve my skills behind my camera moving more and more to manual pictures. First off these guy’s right here have excellent tips and tricks for your wife. Listen to them first.

I don’t know how much time your wife has to spend behind her camera. It is really all about the experience and with me light management.

I first started using the program setting on a Nikon. I did that because I hate using a flash. I like natural pictures as that specific moment in time really was. That pretty much sets the speed and aperture for you for the light at that moment. No Flash required with my new lens. I can’t remember what it is right off the top of my head. And I can shoot free handed most of the time. My kit lens I always needed my tripod but I got the photo effects I wanted just about the same.

And I have only recently moved from the program setting to the manual aperture almost exclusively now. And now manual focus to control the depth of field is a big plus and next step for me. If I switch right over to manual setting I can start to play with the speed because my aperture still remains the same. And I almost always hose up here. LOL

You do want some good pictures when you’re done. Every time I have tried to go straight into manual mode if my results were sink or swim I would surely have drowned a 100 times over by now.

Tell you wife to learn in steps to get to fully manual. That is how I am approaching it anyway. Have fun!


Oops almost forgot the most important feature I use with the program and aperture setting is the White Balance. For speed aperture and program setting set all of them with the White Balance Feature and your set. 


My lens I just got that I absolutely love is a Nikkor AF Zoom-Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF. To get the most out of it I did have to learn more manual stuff. The feed back was immediate for me. I knew exactly what I was doing wrong and it was a must to move to aperture and manual focus. It all made sense to me because I did play for a long time with the kit lens. If I had started with this lens I may have been frustrated with it because it is really sensitive to the light and focal distance like Bean Counter just recently described. And you will truly feel good about your purchase. So start with the kit lens too. 

[jyerxa]

I'm just shooting from the hip here since I have asked a lot of questions and just stepped up my game.

Use the Kit stuff first. What is the most important thing to know before you jump into manual stuff is you camera body. Play with it know what it can do for you and know what you don't know about it. Buying camera bodies to fix your wishes is not the way to go. Know your camera first and foremost. 

[Angry Perch]

Thanks guys. I switched to Av and started playing around. That's a great thing about digital, you can take 400 pictures, instantly see what you're getting, and it doesn't cost a dime. Then I handed the camera to my 9 year old daughter, and told her the only rule was the strap stays around your neck. She took some pretty cool pictures. Nothing that will end up in a museum, (or musedium, as she says) but a few that will end up on the wall. You get a different perspective from 4 feet than you do from 6.

[huntnphool]

Just use aperture priority. For the t3i, nothing is cheaper and easier to blur the background than the Canon 50mm f/1.8

 Other than maybe a Canon 55mm f/1.2

[Bean Counter]

Just use aperture priority. For the t3i, nothing is cheaper and easier to blur the background than the Canon 50mm f/1.8

 Other than maybe a Canon 55mm f/1.2

Is that an old FD lens? I didnt know they make a 55mm for the EF. Zeiss makes a 55mm lens, but it sure doesn't fit the cheap criteria at $4,000! 

[huntnphool]

Just use aperture priority. For the t3i, nothing is cheaper and easier to blur the background than the Canon 50mm f/1.8

 Other than maybe a Canon 55mm f/1.2

Is that an old FD lens? I didnt know they make a 55mm for the EF. Zeiss makes a 55mm lens, but it sure doesn't fit the cheap criteria at $4,000! 

1968 FL 55mm 1.2 that I converted.