Like all art forms, photography is a life-long pursuit. Of course, we all “learned” how to take pictures in a few minutes—especially with today’s point-n-shoot cameras—but for those of us who strive to go beyond the basic snapshot, it takes work. Work and a ton practice, patience, and humility. The practice part is pretty easy. Take lots of pictures. Experiment. Emulate pics that you like and see if you can do the same thing. Humility?
Yes. I don’t think there is a photographer worth his/her salt who can’t learn something new. For me learning how to use white cards/gray cards for setting white balance (including that blacktop is a great sub for a gray card in a pinch) and using bracketing better in my shots. Yes, I’ve been taking pics for a long time, but I know that every time I go out to shoot I learn something and get just a little better.
All that said, bracketing, playing with settings, gray cards, I do love my auto-settings.
First off, I pretty much stick to aperture priority mode. I like wide-open apertures (usually f/1.8-2.2), especially with my prime lenses (50mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8) for the tight depth of field and clarity. I guess that’s my “style”. Regardless, this means that shutter speed is up to the camera.
I don’t stop there though, I’ve learned that auto-ISO is really handy. Even on my short walk going from sun to cloudy to shade for the best results I’d have to tweak my ISO often. With auto-ISO I pick a good ISO for the walk in general, then let it float. Yeah I know that if I picked and ISO I’d have more control, but I check after a series of pics what ISO the camera picked so I can see if I like it and want to shoot again.
I also I stick to auto white balance instead of flipping around to different settings. Both the D80 and D300 have pretty decent auto WB and because I shoot in RAW/NEF I don’t really have to worry about it. I always look at each pic and adjust the tone, white balance, and contrast (I love Lightroom’s “strong contrast” preset), so I get a chance to tweak a bit. Of course if I’m lucky enough to have blacktop in the pic, then my WB is just a click away (another great feature of the digital darkroom, IMHO).
There is something to be said for setting everything by hand, and I do this sometimes, but the freedom of letting the camera do some of the work so I can just focus on composition and practice is freeing.
Of course I’m not not always happy with the results, and that’s when I tweak more for another shot.
Practice, experiment, practice, learn.
And one more tip: read the manual. As obtuse as it can be, sometimes you learn a great new feature or two.
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