Manual Exposure vs Automatic Exposure

The Exposure tool

Most digital cameras will offer a built-in tool to control the exposure, among other digital features, and they work the same way as our eye works – Our pupil (the black dot in your eye) is controlled by the iris, which adjusts the amount of light that will go into the eye. When facing a bright light, the iris will constrain the pupil, and the iris will enlarge our pupil in a dark room. The camera’s exposure tool will affect all the items in the images. We can’t make only the table lighter in the image or only make a wall darker. 

The only way to make an object in an image lighter or darker is in the color correction stage of post-production. Play with exposure in your camera before you start shooting with it. When you play with the exposure tool, you will also notice the different effects you can create with it. For example, you will see that the more exposure you’ll allow in the image, the more focused it will be, and when you reduce the amount of light in an image, you’ll be able to create a selective focus, which will help you in creating a depth of field ( having something in the foreground of your picture in focus and everything beyond that out of focus)

What is auto exposure (AE) in-camera?

The Aperture, the shutter speed, and ISO determine the exposure. Automatic exposure mode is a feature that allows the camera to control these three variables and decide what is the right combination for your image. That’s why it’s called “automatic” – you don’t have to think about these things. In automatic mode, you can concentrate on composition and framing rather than worrying about exposure settings. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t manually change any of these values – you have to press a button or turn a dial. In other words, in automatic mode, you can be creative in terms of composition and framing but not with exposure. If the scene is too dark or too bright, then there is nothing you can do about it other than changing your position or waiting for the light conditions to change (which may take hours).

This can be useful when you need more time to fiddle with manual settings. You can also use auto exposure with manual settings to get your desired look. If the camera does not measure the amount of light correctly, you need to use manual exposure.

What is manual exposure, and how to use it?

Manual exposure is a feature that allows the photographer to manually set the Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to determine the image’s brightness. Most professional photographers use it to have more creative control over the image. Manual mode lets you create the image as you imagine it -sometimes, a darker image is the right, artistic choice, and sometimes a lighter image is in order. The computer in your camera can’t make these artistic decisions.

How to adjust camera exposure?

To understand how to handle manual exposure, I recommend understanding the shutter speed, Aperture, and IOS. Let’s talk about it. As said before, the shutter speed, Aperture, and IOS determine the exposure and the overall brightness of the image, but it can also affect the sharpness and the depth of field of the image.

If you set the shutter speed to 1/500, the Aperture to f/5.6, and the IOS to 100, you’ll get a correct exposure of a middle-bright scene (for example, if you are shooting on a sunny day). If you want to overexpose it, you need to increase the shutter speed, decrease the Aperture, or lower the IOS (or even lower all of them). If you want to underexpose it, do just the opposite.

Now let’s talk about shutter speed, Aperture, and IOS. The Shutter Speed is how long light can hit your sensor while taking a picture. It’s measured in seconds and looks like “1/200”, “1/1000,” etc., or in time like “0.5

• The shutter speed controls how long the camera’s shutter stays open. The longer it stays open, the more light enters the camera, creating a brighter image. You can get blurry images with a slow shutter speed because it takes too long for one image to capture all your movements.
• The ISO affects how sensitive the camera will be to the light in the room. When the camera is set to manual exposure, you can increase the camera’s light sensitivity.
• The Aperture determines how much to open the lens. The more we open the lens, the more light will get in and create a lighter image.

The aperture opening also determines the depth of field. When we open the lens to a wider aperture, the depth of field becomes smaller, and there will be more things in focus. The smaller Aperture will have a more significant depth of field, so there will be fewer things in focus.

To adjust your camera exposure, you need to take these steps:

1. Turn your camera into manual mode.
2. Play with all the controls you got. Usually, they will be Aperture, Shutter speed, and ISO. Start with the Aperture to create a depth of field and the Shutter speed to have a more focused image.
3. After the first adjustment, please look at your monitor, and see how it looks. 
4. You might want to zoom in to see the details.
5. Keep adjusting until you are satisfied with the picture.

When shooting your first film exercise, you will want to use the auto-exposure a lot, but that is a habit you’ll need to lose as you move along. Most cameras’ auto-exposure features will create the world 18 percent grey. In many images, you will see that it turned a solid white wall into a grey one.

To get the best auto-exposure setting, you need first to test it in a different location (with different amounts of lights) and see how it handles the 

What is the AEL button on the camera?

The AEL means AE lock, and it’s a function that allows you to reframe the scene while keeping the exposure the same. In most cameras, there will be two options: Hold – which means you need to hold it while shooting and Toggle, you simply need to push the AEL button.

What’s important to remember is that everyone works differently. With time, you’ll learn when to use the AE button and when to go manual. The truth is that Whether a manual mode is valid or not is primarily dependent on the photographer.

Which camera should you buy?

That’s a tricky question. Vintage cameras have an undeniable appeal among photography enthusiasts, and each model carries its unique features and qualities. Now, we will explore and compare my favorite cameras, the Canon AE-1, Yashica FX-103, Pentax K1000, Nikon F100, and Minolta X-570/X-700 cameras individually, focusing on their key features, image quality, usability, and performance.