I feel so "grown up"!!

[First Light]

Ever since my thread a few weeks ago about my RAW images being grainy, when I discovered that it is not a wise idea to shoot in AUTO mode, I have been trying to learn how to use my manual mode settings. So I made it my goal on my vacation this past week to shoot all my pix in Manual & RAW, and I DID IT!!!!

I got some pretty good results, too, I think! See for yourself here or here *first 5 images*

Feel free to tell me what you think!

[Hill Country Hack]

Nice job. You are such a big girl now! Now just keep at it and it will get easier and better all the time.

[nickbedford]

Great shots!

Never stop trying to surprise yourself.

[graciousness]

That's brilliant!!! I know how you feel! The first time I forced myself to stop using P mode in my camera a few months ago, I was so excited and thrilled because the results have been so satisfying because it proved that I was beginning to stand the basics. The more I used manual mode and looked at the results, the closer I felt I was getting to getting the look/style/vision of how I wanted my images to look.

I still use my P mode though, when shooting children's parties, etc, as I find that there's just not enough time to fiddle with the settings with hyper little people on the mood, but when I do this now, I don't feel like a complete noob.

Great feeling, isn't it?

[Jonbar18]

I did the same thing as you. I forced myself to only use manual when I was on vacation. Started off kinda...um...bad.... but with all the shooting, you could see quite the improvment from the beggining to the end. If only i could afford to go another 5-10 vacations

[Bruce A]

Atta girl FL - you did real good. Give yourself a pat on the back from me

[AshNZ]

Nice work.

But my experience was that shooting in M all the time was unnecessary. Most of the time I'm in either A or S.

[SwissJon]

Congrats.. See, It wasn't so hard.. I spend half my time in Manual and half in Aperture Priority mode.. Sometimes you don't need the control that Manual gives.. A bit like Autopilot on a plane.. There are times when it's appropriate, times when it isn't.

[nickbedford]

I'm almost always in Manual, but then I don't shoot a lot of crazy varying lighting stuff.

It really isn't hard once you fully understand exactly what each setting affects. For example, at night, I instinctively bring my ISO up to 1600, aperture to F/2.8 and shutter speed to 1/60th. If it's too dark even then, I might not even bother (I don't usually shoot noisier or blurrier than that).

[RLucas]

Awesome! It's a liberating feeling isn't it? I see a big difference in your images already! Keep up the good work!