If I had a penny for every time someone told me, "Wow! Your camera takes amazing photos!" I'd be one rich gal. Though I wish it were just that simple, it's a bit more complicated than that.
With DSLRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex) being quite affordable and attainable, it seems just about anyone can have one these days. And, they do! Unlike film SLR cameras, digital SLRs come fully equipped with features that make taking photographs pretty simple to anyone who would like the look of a professional photograph but haven't the training/knowledge to become one. And that is okay, too!
The challenge comes when switching the camera's dial to M (Manual) from A (auto) or SCN (scene).
When a camera owner switches their camera dial to M the camera no longer makes decisions for the camera operator. It is then up to the camera operator to compute the shutter speed, ISO, aperture. All three of these work hand in hand to make properly exposed, fabulous images in camera.
To the untrained eye landscape and portraiture images made in A or SCN may look fabulous - especially with the amount of amazing editing software available. (Editing software is referred to as a dry darkroom as photographers use this software to develop their RAW digital files just as film photographers use chemicals and papers as one way of developing their film.) To show the best example of this, I've compiled these images of the moon.
The first image is made in SCN Mode (Scene Mode). Scene mode is a setting on the DSLR dial that allows the camera operator to select the closest scene to what they are in. The preset selections may include, "Sports, Sunset, Portrait, and Night" to name a few. I selected "Night Scene" on SCN mode and took this image.
The second image is on Auto. When in Auto, the camera computes the scene you are shooting and develops its own shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and whether or not it thinks the in-camera flash is needed. Obviously it was at night, so the camera decided the flash was needed.
The third photograph is shot in complete manual, as I shoot all of my images. The first step was to set my aperture to as low as it could go. I didn't want a wide aperture (often referred to as shooting wide open - it's not good for a lot of things, including portraiture, but that's for another day!) because I wanted ALL of the moon in focus and because the moon is so far away. So, I set it to 7.1 a happy medium. (The lowest and highest an aperture can be set varies from lens to lens.) The next step was to make sure my ISO was set to the lowest it could go. The lower the ISO the less "noise" I'm going to receive in my final image. I set it to 50, the lowest setting my camera has. The next step I set the shutter speed to make a proper exposure. Too fast and the moon would be too dark. Too slow, the moon would be too bright. Finding the happy medium was key. Luckily knowing exactly where to put your settings is easy on digital SLRs because they have LCD screens. Some DSLRs also show in-camera what the exposure is. And all DSLRs have light meters that will tell the camera operator if the exposure is properly balanced. (Disclaimer: DSLRs come equipped with TTL light meters which will work in most cases. In this case, it was off. It is always best to have an off-camera light meter for difficult lighting situations.)
The last photograph, on the right, is the same as the third photograph, but it is edited with Photoshop and cropped. (The key to photoshop - a wise, non-photographer friend told me once - is that it doesn't LOOK photoshopped. But again, that's for another day.) I shoot in RAW files. RAW files are minimally processed by the camera, so that I may process it myself, and provides more data than a jpg. (When a camera operator shoots in jpg, they are allowing the camera to process the files as it sees it needs.) So, I added some clarity and slapped an unsharp mask on it, to bring out the details in the moon. I then cropped the image. My largest lens is a 300mm which may seem like it's a huge zoom lens. But, when shooting the moon, it still makes it look tiny within the frame. So, I cropped the image so we can see more of the detail.
