Dial M for Manual: Adventures in DSLR

I read on Twitter this afternoon that if you stick to something for more than 13 weeks it's likely to be a long term habit. This really made me think I've got to work at making photography my habit if I'm to have any chance of realising my New Year's resolutions in this area. Spurred on by this unsettling thought, I set out this evening after work on my quest to become Birmingham's answer to Henri Cartier-Bresson.


Unfortunately, unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson, I did not have The City of Light for the subject of my photographic experiments. Instead, I had Birmingham. And not only that, the weather was a bit iffy so I decided to limit my foray to the block of flats in Edgbaston where I live. Still, I'd heard self-imposed constraints can help creativity thrive so why not make life easy on myself?

In a previous blog post I mentioned how I was pleased with a photo I took of my garage door. With its deep paint you could be forgiven for believing you're looking at a Rothko. Albeit the Rothko which was recently vandalised/enhanced (depending on your viewpoint) but you get my point. Encouraged by this earlier success, I set about photographing my garage from a different approach.

Garage Door 

The picture above is a close up shot I took of my garage and is my favourite shot of the evening. I noticed a spider had weaved a web over the number sign and thought this might be a nice detail to pick up.

I took the photo using a 50 mm prime lens. This lens is particularly well-suited to portraits as it can shoot at a very wide aperture (as low as f number 1.8), which allows you to focus on the subject and throw the background nicely out of office.

As I said in my post yesterday, I am  committed to getting over my fear of Manual mode in 2013. To achieve the shot of the garage at the top of this post I made the following selections:

• Aperture set to f 1.8. I figures this would limit sharp focus to either the sign or cob-web, allowing more of an impressionistic outline of the garage which, let's face it, is not exactly the most stylish backdrop.
• ISO 1600. This is the highest ISO setting my camera allows. I've read having a high ISO number makes the camera very sensitive to light. I figured this was the way to go, given the fairly glum evening we had.
• Shutter Speed 1/25. I eventually settled on this speed not because I had a strong view on what the speed should be but after adjusting the camera on the basis of a display reading visible within the viewfinder. When you half-press the shutter release button you can see a meter which spans from -2 to +2 with 0 in the middle. I believe this meter relates to light. I discovered that by increasing or decreasing the shutter speed I was able to bring the meter to 0, which an old colleague of mine with a Photography degree told me is where I should be trying to get to, at least when learning the basics.

Where did the evening go? I took this photo at 1/2500 shutter speed in order to achieve a 0 balance on the manual meter. As a result it came out way too dark. I case you're interested, the photo is meant to be a row of garage security lights. 

After all my worries about moving to Manual I found the process of setting up the camera surprisingly intuitive. I might even go as far as to say it was fun trying to figure out how the various settings relate to each other and making subtle adjustments.

Having said all that, I was still a little unclear on one or two things, namely:

• Where was I best placing my focal point? I knew that with f 1.8 only a small part of the overall photo would be in sharp focus. In the end I tried a couple of different options out, focusing on the number sign in one, the cob web in the other before re-composing the shot so as to avoid placing the focus bang on in the centre.
• How can I make sure the photo I take is adequately lit? After taking care to get a zero meter reading by adjusting the shutter speed I had thought I had cracked this problem. However, after looking back at  some of the other photos I took I can see that some shots still came out very dimly lit. Clearly, I'll have to do a little more research on how the meter reading relates to how the photo eventually comes. out.

This shot came out a little more bright at 1/250 shutter speed but I wasn't sure where best to focus my shot. In the end  I chose the end security light then tried to re-compose the shot. 

Despite these photos not being terribly exciting I'm glad I got out and took them. I've proven to myself that I can take control of the camera in Manual mode, even if the results I achieve aren't necessarily as slick as those I might have got from one of the Preset modes. I've also hopefully taken the first small step in making DSLR photography my habit in 2013. Just another 12 weeks and six days to go.