I shoot manual, now what?

Question

Sorry to bombard yahoo answers with all these photography Qs.. Ive been shooting in manual mode for about a week now with my new Nikon D3200  18-55 VR Lens. I get correct exposure I think. Although sometimes a bit under exposed which I dont understand...

This is how I shoot and i'm only an amateur so feel free to criticize.. respectively, that is.

I focus on my subject and adjust my aperture. Normally I keep a wide aperture because i like soft backgrounds in my photos (attractive to me). Unless of course, shooting large landscapes then I close up around f8-f12. After focusing on my subject,  I keep ISO low as possible and adjust my shutter speed, not going below 60-80, unless tripod is used.

I snap the photo when the meter is directly centered. (default metering settings).

I am told that a large point of shooting manual is to adjust your exposure accordingly. However, I don't feel confident viewing an image on a dinky camera screen to determine whether its under exposed or over. If the shot is taken in the middle of my camera meter, its pretty close.

Any suggestions/tips to determine a properly exposed photo and how can i  improve my sequence of operations to achieve a better photo?

attached is a photo I just shot/edited 10 minutes ago. Thanks

Jimbo · Answer

Bringing the iso up to 200 or 400 wont hurt.  I have the same camera/lens and it handles high ISO's pretty well without much noise.  It's only when you do major editing that noise will come out.  The pic above is pretty good, except that the subject is in the shade and parts of the background are in the sun, so it takes attention from the flower.  And the flower is slightly dark.  This is easily fixed if you get Adobe Lightroom.  You can increase the exposure of the shadows and reduce the highlights to make the overall picture less contrasty.  Do you shoot in Raw?  Raw allows a lot more freedom with editing compared to jpeg.  I agree with Kalley in that its not a great lens, but you can still get quality shots with it.  This is a pic I took with my d3200 and edited in lightroom.  Some people don't like pictures edited too much, but I do. ps. Im an amateur too--still learning

? · Answer

Why are you using that crappy lens? Get a 50mm 1.8 lens. The blurry background will knock your socks off.
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-50mm-NIKKOR-Digital-Cameras/dp/B004Y1AYAC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403148665&sr=8-1&keywords=nikkor+50+1.8

Are you in single point focus?
Your shutter should never go below 1/100 when holding the camera.
Make sure you are in spot metering mode.

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I shoot manual, now what?

2 Answers