Shooting in manual mode is considered by many novice photographers to be a difficult task reserved for professionals. In this article, I’ll try to show you that the opposite is often true – shooting in manual mode doesn’t need to be hard, and it can take your wildlife photos to another level.
Every DSLR and mirrorless camera offers several ways to deal with exposure – basically, how your shutter speed, aperture, and ISO values are chosen. On one end of the spectrum is full Auto mode, while Manual mode is on the other end. But it is all just different ways to pick those same three settings. (Even those weird scene modes like “portrait,” “sport,” “fireworks,” etc., are just different flavors of Auto.)
In between are semi-automatic modes like shutter priority, aperture priority, and program mode. Semi-automatic modes see some love from professional photographers. Especially aperture priority mode. But today, I want to focus on manual mode and the potential it brings to wildlife photography.
I wrote that aperture priority, shutter priority, and program modes are semi-automatic. That is, the camera does some of the work for deciding the correct exposure, but you also have manual input. However, what some photographers don’t realize is that manual mode can be semi-automatic as well!
All you need to do is set your ISO to Auto while you’re in manual mode. Then, you have full control over the aperture and shutter speed, while the camera determines the darkness and lightness of your images by shifting the ISO. If you think it’s making your photos too dark or bright, you can dial in exposure compensation, and it will change how strongly it shifts ISO.
Personally, I use manual mode + Auto ISO about 90% of the time. It gives me full control over the two important creative tools – aperture and shutter speed. I leave the technical (and basically boring) part of the process, the ISO, to the camera’s intelligence.
Manual mode combined with Auto ISO is great wherever the lighting conditions are changing. For example, if you’re shooting in the woods, you’ll need different exposure values for a bird sitting on the ground under a thick bush than for a bird perched on a nicely lit branch a few meters away. Any semi-automatic mode (including M + Auto ISO) will take care of that easily.
The primary time where you need to avoid M + Auto ISO is when you’re shooting in very bright conditions. Then it is easy to overexpose if you’re not careful. The camera will keep lowering ISO to compensate for the bright light, but eventually it runs into base ISO and hits a wall! It cannot lower ISO any further, and so, you get photos that are too bright. You can avoid that by switching to aperture priority mode, or by pushing your shutter speed to a faster value and watching carefully for overexposure.
Then there’s the (not so) terrifying world of full manual! Even though I use M + Auto ISO most of the time, sometimes it is also a necessity to control ISO as a wildlife photographer.
One situation is when the camera’s automatic exposure is behaving erratically. Note the photo below, which is backlit. My subject is quite dark, but that’s how I want it to be.
With any automatic or semi-automatic mode, the bird in the photo above would have been overexposed. The delicate highlights on the wings would have been blown out. And even though I could set exposure compensation to darken the photo, would the system react in time? This hummingbird was only in the perfect spot for a fraction of a second.
That’s why I will often use manual mode if the sunlight is consistent and I have one particular wildlife photo in mind. I can frame that photo, dial in my manual exposure (by taking test photos beforehand) and wait for my subject to go to the right place. I do not need to worry about a momentary change in the background lighting, or in my camera’s metering speed, to throw the exposure off balance.
When in doubt, the key is to expose so that none of the (important) highlights in your photo are blown out to white! This is first and foremost in my mind when exposing in manual mode. You can always brighten the shadows later, but there is no good way to bring back overexposed highlights.
Here’s an advanced tip for you when shooting RAW. I recommend setting your Image Control to the flattest possible setting, usually called Neutral or Flat. These do not affect the RAW file directly, but they will give you a more accurate preview of your raw data on the camera screen. It is easier to tell what is actually overexposed or not.
Then, of course, if you are using a flash, you should almost always been in fully manual mode with manual ISO. If anything, you can put your flash to automatic (TTL) mode. Automatic and semi-automatic camera modes just don’t play well with flash. And if you’re using a flash as a wildlife photographer, it probably means you had time to set up your photo anyway, so there is no excuse not to use manual mode.
Finally, one thing to worry about in manual mode (with manual ISO) is that the light can change without you realizing it. The untrained eye may not be able to tell if the environment changes slowly by 1-2 stops of light, but the camera certainly will. So, just be vigilant about reviewing your photos and checking for underexposure/overexposure if you’re shooting in manual mode. Especially if your ISO is also manual.
Here is my overall recommendation:
- Shoot in Manual Mode + Auto ISO as a wildlife photographer most of the time
- Pick a fast enough shutter speed for your subject. (This comes with practice, but will usually be about 1/1000 to 1/2000 second)
- Set your aperture to your tastes, taking into account the depth of field. (Often, you will probably be at the widest aperture as a wildlife photographer)
- Use exposure compensation if the camera is consistently overexposing or underexposing the scene
- Lastly, watch out for very bright scenes, because if your ISO reaches the base value, it cannot go any lower, and you will get overexposed photos if the scene gets brighter
- Shoot in Manual Mode + Manual ISO if the camera is having a hard time metering
- Use this mode for difficult subjects where the meter will fail, including:
- Backlit subjects
- Spotlit subjects
- Photos that you have time to plan, frame, and compose ahead of time
- Backgrounds with inconsistent brightness (since the subject needs to be exposed the same regardless)
- Don’t overexpose any highlights on the subject. This is much more important than the shadows!
- Periodically review your photos to make sure the light isn’t slowly changing without your knowledge
- And if you’re using a flash, definitely use this mode!
- Use this mode for difficult subjects where the meter will fail, including:
That covers it. Some wildlife photographers prefer shooting in Aperture Priority mode or even Shutter Priority mode, but I find that the process above is all it takes to get well-exposed wildlife photos every time.
I hope I’ve convinced you that full manual mode is not just for the pros, but can make life easier for every wildlife photographer. If, after reading this article, you still have any questions that I could clarify, I would be very happy if you would write them in the comments below the article!