Auto vs. Manual Shooting - What's the difference?

Making the switch from automatic to full manual mode is not an easy one, especially if you're just starting out, but IT'S WORTH IT!!! You'll take a lot of bad photos first as you're learning, but then your photography has the ability to surpass anything you ever did on the other modes! I took these pictures at our photography class today, and you can see the difference. The top photo I took in full manual mode, and then I switched it to auto and took the bottom one. Anytime you shoot in automatic you're letting the camera guess what kind of scenario you're in, and it's a lot harder to match the exact vision in your head in varied scenarios. Manual all the way baby!!!

Here were my intentions for the top photo shot in manual: Because I was dealing with two different exposures and only one light source, I chose to expose for the people, knowing that the sky would be overexposed. Many people get frustrated when shooting in auto because they don't understand why the people are so underexposed, so with this blog I am just trying to show how the camera on automatic guesses which exposure you're aiming for, but on manual you have full control. Had I had some off camera flashes  for this photo I could have nailed both exposures but unfortunately it was just my camera, so without HDR I had to pick one area or the other to expose, and exposing for the subject (usually people in my case) is always my priority. This top one is by no means an example of a perfect photo, I just wanted to show the difference between manual & auto in the same setting!

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