tomad Loc: North Carolina

It's total manual control, i.e., not letting the camera make ANY decisions as to how to take the shot.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

If you aren’t referencing a neutral test target of 12 to 18 percent reflectance, and the scene isn’t “average”, the meter is inaccurate. That means auto ISO or a blind reliance on “match needle” or “match data” metering is wrong.

That’s why many of us insist on FULL manual being control of the entire triangle.

There’s nothing wrong with any mode, so long as you are aware of the scene brightness and color temperature, and compensate accordingly.

redlegfrog

Manual is place where instruction for camera can be found.

bweber Loc: Newton, MA

Even in full manual mode my Canons show a natch needle that is directed by the camera's meter. So, unless I ignore the meter I am not shooting completely manually. I use manual settings when shooting with flash so I can control shutter speed up to the max synch speed if I want to expose some ambient light. I also can control depth of field with the aperture. I tend to shoot some studio type portraits at f1.8 or 2.0 depending on the lens I am using.

BebuLamar

Manufacturers need to make what sells and not what's best.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

You set ALL settings yourself, the camera makes no decisions. If yet A then you only set one setting and the camera does the others....

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Manual mode is simple:

You do everything related to exposure.
Set the ISO
Set the Aperture
Set the Speed

Disable all camera features if you do not shoot raw. You would leave the camera free to to whatever if you do not disable it. This includes the White Balance.

Some purist will add... Focus manually.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Using a light meter, whether in or off camera or simply using your eyes to "meter" the light do not qualify as auto anything. The meter does nothing for you to automate the process, any more that a tape measure does construction. It is just a measurement.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

Manual is like using my old Rolleiflex. You make every setting.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Manual is manual exposure... just the way it sounds. With M you make all the settings, the camera doesn't make any. This is a slower process that requires you have some knowledge how to set things up, but it "locks down" exposure so that it cannot vary due to different tonalities in the scene being photographed. Manual exposure might be set referencing the camera's built-in metering system or by evaluating the histograms of test shots made with the camera, or with a separate hand held meter, or even "by eye" if you have learned to do so. Cameras with electronic viewfinders might be able to be set using what's seen on that screen with a form of Exposure Simulation. Similar can be done using the rear LCD screen and Live View on many cameras that have optical viewfinders, instead of EVFs.

Some cameras also have a "B" or "Bulb" setting, which is for fully manual, extra long exposures that you time yourself. Most modern cameras can do as long as 30 second exposures using M.... so B would only need to be used for timed exposures longer than that.

A (or Av) is Aperture Priority AE... You set the ISO and the aperture, the camera automatically chooses what it thinks is a correct shutter speed.

S (or Tv) is Shutter Priority AE.... You set the ISO and the shutter speed, but leave it to the camera to choose what it thinks is a correct aperture.

P is Program AE... You set the ISO and the camera chooses both shutter speed and aperture, based upon info that's been programmed into it.

Manual WITH Auto ISO is a new exposure mode made possible by digital imaging (couldn't be done with film). It most definitely IS NOT manual. It's just another form of auto exposure (AE). You choose the shutter speed and the aperture, but the camera is allowed to select the ISO it uses. That's auto exposure too!

Because all cameras use a reflective metering system to determine exposure, with all the AE modes you may need to use Exposure Compensation to "correct for errors". Reflective metering is influenced by the tonality of any subject you're focusing upon. This is because the camera has no idea what's in front of it.... and it can only assume that everything is "18% gray" (or that the range of tonalities being measured average out to 18% gray). But not everything you photograph is 18% gray. For example, if you're shooting a bride in a white gown in a snow storm... an unusually light tone subject and scene... the camera is going to want to under-expose... so when using any of the AE modes you have to dial in some + Exposure Compensation. At the other extreme, if you're photographing a black bear in a coal mine... an exceptionally dark subject and scene... the camera is going to try to over-expose and when using any of the AE modes you will need to dial in some - E.C. in order to get an accurate exposure. (Exposure Compensation doesn't work in fully manual modes... but you have to take these same factors into consideration and skew your setting appropriately, when relying upon the camera's reflective meter for info and the subject/scene aren't "average tonality".)

None of this has anything to do with Auto Focus modes... I don't know why anyone would even mention it because it's not really relevant. Some minor exceptions where exposure and focus [i][atterns[/i] are interrelated include Evaluative/Matrix Metering, which measures the entire scene but places extra emphasis on small areas immediately around the active AF point(s) or some advanced cameras have a means of linking Spot Metering to the Active AF Points to measure only a small area right around the active AF point. Both of these sort of assume that you are focusing on the primary subject, and therefore that's the most important place to meter.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Or that annoying book that comes in multiple translations that no one ever consults....

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

If you have ISO on auto, you no more shooting in manual!

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Ok. So if I follow the process of choosing all elements of exposure but set my camera to “vivid” or one of those “film modes”, am I still shooting manual?

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

On my M-6, I had three lights to indicate proper exposure - and they were biased by irrelevant light. There was no exposure compensation, no spot metering, no auto IS0. You set the ISO, aperture, shutter speed and focus and fired the shutter. That was manual!

Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand

When you set everything manually.