3 Reasons To Shoot In Manual Mode With Your Phone
We all love taking pictures with our smartphones, some of us perhaps more than others. And what I have noticed is that most people simply pull out their phone and take a shot using the camera’s automatic settings.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I was one of those people, too. Before I got into smartphone photography, I was just happy taking pictures that way without ever thinking about what more my smartphone’s camera can do.
And then I started exploring the Manual mode, (also known as ‘Pro’ mode on some devices). That’s when everything changed! I realised how much power was actually in my hands.
As time went by, I got more and more used to shooting in Manual mode and, I won’t lie, it helped improve my photos A LOT !
The benefits of shooting manually are what I call The 3 C’s : Control , Consistency , and Creativity. These, I believe, contribute to what makes a mobile photo look good.
In this article, I’ll be discussing these three benefits of shooting manually.
1. Control
Personally, I think this is the greatest reason to shoot in Manual mode because the other two reasons are only possible because of the control that shooting manually gives you.
Taking photographs in Manual mode allows you to control the settings of the camera, pretty much the same way you would on a normal DSLR camera.
With this mode, you can control several settings which include:
ISO
ISO refers to the camera’s image sensor’s sensitivity to light. A low number means the sensor is less sensitive to light. A higher number means the camera will be more sensitive to light.
In other words, if you’re shooting in bright light conditions, you’ll have to bring your ISO down in order to avoid overexposing your shots. But if you’re shooting in low lighting conditions, your ISO will need to be dialed up, so the image can be brighter.
If you set the ISO too high, you may start noticing digital noise in your images, So, you need to be cautious.
Shutter speed
Shutter speed is expressed in seconds and it refers to how fast the shutter opens and closes. The longer it stays open, the more light gets to the camera. The shorter it stays open; the less light reaches the camera.
Therefore, if you shoot with a slow shutter speed like 1s (one second), your picture will come out brighter than if you shot with a fast shutter speed like 1/3000s (one three-thousandth of a second).
You can use a slow shutter speed creatively at night to create things like light trails and light paintings. If you want to take a perfectly sharp photo of a fast-moving subject mid-action without any motion blur, such as someone jumping up, you’ll need to set a fast shutter speed.
However, there’s also a catch here. The longer the shutter stays active, the more your images will turn out blurry from even the slightest movement.
To avoid landing in the pitfalls of blurry or noisy photos, you need to learn how to balance ISO and shutter speed together to adjust exposure.
You can play around these settings to create a mood and ambiance of your choice in your photos. If you don’t already know about it, learn about the Exposure Triangle and apply it to your photography to add a more professional and creative touch to it.
Focus
The auto-focus system on smartphone cameras works really well. So, it makes focusing fairly simple and quick. You can just tap anywhere on the screen where you want to focus, and the camera will focus for you.
Manual focus works similarly to how it does on a normal camera but instead it’s a focus slider on the screen, not a focus ring on a lens. You simply adjust the slider to where you want to focus.
It may seem like more work to focus manually this way, but sometimes mobile phone cameras can struggle to find focus, especially in low light. In this case, focusing manually may prove to be more effective.
Not only will it help you focus when your camera struggles, but it will allow you take photos that can be defocused for creative reasons.
White balance
Different light sources have different colour temperatures, measured in degrees Kelvin. As a result, what looks white under candlelight may look somewhat bluish under sunlight.
Auto white balance (AWB) uses software calculations to correct the camera’s colours to match the scene automatically. With Manual mode, you can select the type of lighting you are in from a given list of presets.
You can also use a slider to adjust the white balance to a colour temperature that suits your scene.
Having full control of these settings allows you to take images that look the way that you want them to look, not the smartphone’s calculations of what it “thinks” looks good. You are in control of how you want to deal with various lighting situations and which parts of your image should be in focus.
Not to say that Auto Mode doesn’t take good pictures. It most certainly does. Sometimes it’s just better to be in control of how your photos turn out.
2. Consistency
Second ‘C’: Consistency. When shooting in Auto mode, the camera has a mind of it’s own. It’s constantly looking for where to focus. It’s constantly trying to detect changes in lighting and compensate for those.
As a result, it’s possible to take several pictures with varying exposure settings every time the frame changes due to subject movement, camera movement, and/or lighting changes.
Shooting in Manual mode allows you to produce images that are consistent in look and quality. For example, if you want to take a series of images and you want them to be somewhat dark, you can adjust your exposure settings accordingly.
By adjusting the settings yourself, you’re able to make your pictures share the same exposure quality among others.
This may not sound like a good enough reason to shoot manually to a smartphone photography hobbyist. But if you’re into the art and aesthetics of smartphone photography, consistency may be important to you.
3. Creativity
The third ‘C’ is for ‘Creativity’. Without being able to control your camera settings manually, what you can do visually with your images becomes very limited.
For example, you can slow down the shutter speed in order to do long exposure photography. This works nicely for shots like waterfalls and other flowing bodies of water.
You can also use a slow shutter speed creatively at night to create things like light trails and light paintings. If you want to take a perfectly sharp photo of a fast moving subject mid-action without any motion blur, such as someone jumping up, you’ll need to set a fast shutter speed.
What you can do creatively is only limited by your imagination. However, without knowing what the tool you’re carrying can and can’t do, you won’t be able to fully explore your potential. That’s why I highly advice you learn your camera’s specs and how Manual mode works.
Conclusion
And there you have it. My 3 C’s of why to shoot in Manual mode — Control, Consistency, and Creativity. Does this mean you have to shoot manual all the time? Of course not! With things like street photography, it oftentimes might be easier to shoot on the go using Auto mode.
However, when time allows and you’re in control, it’s always good to take the time to set up your shot, choose your settings, and capture the image that you want to.
If your native camera app doesn’t have a Manual mode, then you may want to consider installing a third-party app. These are sometimes better than the Manual mode that comes with the stock camera app.
Most importantly, practice. It’s the only way you can ever improve your understanding of your mobile camera and the quality of the photos you capture with it
Originally published at https://thesmartphonephotographer.com on August 4, 2019.
