How important is it for your digital camera to have manual exposure settings?

Answer 1

A camera with manual aperture and shutter speed settings allow for greater creative flexibility in your Photography, as you can photograph in various light settings and create aperture and shutter settings typically not set by an automatic camera.

Digital camera images also have less latitude and are more likely to lose detail if you don�t have the correct exposure setting. [Latitude is how forgiving the camera is before your exposure shows imperfections, like washed out areas].

(For example, darker areas will �drop-out� easier and lighter areas will appear washed-out.)

Manual exposure settings to consider include aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation. [Aperture is the device in the lens that allows more or less light. Shutter speed is a measurement of how long the shutter is open when a picture is taken.

Exposure compensation allows you to manually adjust the automatic setting up or down.]

(For example, you are taking a photo of someone in front of a light window and the person becomes a silhouette. You �compensate� by manually letting in more light, which will reduce the silhouette effect.)

Over-riding the automatic pre-set camera settings is sometimes necessary just to be able get a picture at all.

(For example, photographs taken of ballroom dancers at night in a hall lit by flourescant lights with a compact digital camera set to 'Automatic' will always be blurred and have a color cast, but by going to Manual exposure with light-type adjustment and setting the exposure speed higher to avoid blur results in a dark photo that becomes reasonable after lightening it in a noise-reduction program on you computer.)

How important manual settings are depends on how 'serious' you are about using, and learning to control your camera. If you just want to point and shoot you don't need extra controls, just the usual automatic settings. If you're interested in photography as a hobby and want to take more control of your pictures, then manual controls are really useful. (I'm not saying you can't take great pictures with auto cameras, just that you will have more options with manual options.)