When To Use Your DSLR in AUTO Mode

When To Use Your DSLR in AUTO Mode

by William Lulow

A new student just made me think of this topic, so I thought I would explain a bit more. Although most of my students have become used to having FULL CONTROL of their image making, there are times when relinquishing it to the camera can be useful. So, let’s start from the beginning. 

Today’s digital cameras are built to be able to calculate exposures to ensure that the user gets what they want in their pictures, basically. They have sensors with light meters built in and are equipped with things like AUTO-FOCUS LENSES, so most beginners, even it they haven’t studied the “Triangle of Exposure” or purchased a tripod, or a lens filter or any other gear, can make good pictures with their cameras on AUTOMATIC. 

When you set your camera to Automatic or Program, the chip will figure out the correct exposure so that your image will look good. As you progress with your image making, you will probably want to exercise more personal control over exposures, and that’s when you can begin to use the camera on full MANUAL MODE. As I have often said, different people want different things from their experiences making pictures. Some just want to capture a scene the way it is, others want to make images they can manipulate later with software, and there are yet more who just want to make prints for their families. 

So, in AUTO mode, the camera figures everything out for you and in MANUAL mode, you exercise complete control over the photograph. But to get successful images in manual mode, you have to do some thinking in advance. YOU have to decide WHAT KIND OF IMAGE YOU WANT TO MAKE. This becomes a must as you progress with your photography. You need to decide what you want to show in any image you make. 

For example: if you want to stop the action of a horse race, you will have to use a very fast shutter speed. Even if you want to do a portrait of a friend, your shutter speed needs to be fast enough to capture the person’s actions – not as fast as to capture the horse race, but fast enough just the same. If you want to capture the “emotion of motion,” you might want to use a slower shutter speed as in the image below:

This is actually a prize-winning image I made at Madison Square Garden in New York City many years ago. It was made with a slow shutter speed and I think I might even have moved the camera during the exposure. 

Another example: if you are photographing an interior space, say, everything in the room needs to be sharp and in focus. For that you will need a small lens opening (aperture or f/stop) in order to keep the image sharp. So, when you need very specialized kinds of pictures, that’s the time to wrestle control from the camera and begin to DO IT YOURSELF! Here’s an example of such an interior image:

In this image, all the interior elements are sharp as well as the building outside. Also, here the exposure on the inside is balanced with that on the outside. Automatic mode will not do this for you. 

Here’s a situation where I was photographing an event and stopping occasionally to make pictures:

This is an image from the Million Woman March in 2017 to protest the first election of this president. There was some bright sunshine as well as shadows caused by the New York City buildings, so rather than stop and calculate an exposure each time, I just shot in AUTO mode and let the camera figure it out. There were just too many changes in exposure and all I was looking for were acceptable pictures of the march. 

So there are times when the automatic feature in just about all digital cameras these days is useful, but at some point, you should graduate to using your camera on MANUAL most of the time.