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One thing that I think many new photographers don’t understand that, if they did, would make working in manual mode a lot easier.  That is simply how ISO, aperture and shutter speed work together to give us a correct exposure (flash or OCF is a different matter).

Each change in value, either up or down, is one stop.  In order to maintain the correct exposure we must also adjust one of the other two.  For instance if my scene calls for 1/125th @f/4 @ISO 400 but I want to shoot the scene at f/2.8 then I must either change my ISO to 200 or my shutter speed to 1/250th.  Why?  Because by opening up my aperture one stop  I have now put myself in an over-exposed situation and must do one of the following in order to once again have a correct exposure:

1. reduce my sensors sensitivity to light by one stop (ISO)
2. only allow the light to hit the sensor for half the time at the current settings (shutter speed).

Conversely, if I were to want to shoot the scene at f/5.6 then I would have to change either of the above settings in the opposite direction.

So the next time you are out taking photographs and boldly turn that dial to ‘M’, play with SS, aperture and ISO by changing their values.  I think you might be surprised as to how easy it actually is.

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