Now, it's time to get off auto, and start shooting in manual.
Shooting in manual might be a bit challenging at first, because you have to set shutter-speed, aperture and ISO at the same time. While shooting in daylight, keep the ISO at the lowest. And as you advance gradually, and master more techniques, your tripod will be your wife during shooting. Like Scott Kelby said, shoot every photo using a tripod; you'll get hang of this fact as you master more skills and techniques. In the broad daylight, photos shot without a tripod may look error-less on the camera's LCD, but when you come home and view those images on your computer screen, you'll notice the image has a noticeable blur. I'm not saying that every image shot without a tripod will have this blur; images shot with very fast shutter-speeds will not show any blur in them. But even in daylight, in normal cases, the exposure time don't go lower than 1/600 secs, which is enough to induce blur in the image due to shaking. So, if you want your photos tack-sharp, always use a tripod.
Now, while setting aperture and shutter-speed, keep one thing in mind:
While setting aperture, moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light coming into the sensor; and a change in shutter-speed from one stop to the next also doubles or halves the amount of light coming into the sensor. So, if you increase one and decrease another by the same stop, you are letting the same amount of light into your camera as previous.
Now, go out and start shooting. It's very important to understand the inter-dependance of shutter-speed and aperture; and practice is needed before you are finally able to strike the balance between the two. At first, due to improper choice of shutter-speed and aperture, some images will be blown out; some will be silhouetted and some will be blurred. You are to find the perfect balance yourself by shooting more and more images. For knowing aperture, go to aperture priority mode, choose a subject with a prominent background; focus primarily on the subject and shoot images with different apertures; preferably from lowest available to highest available. You will be able to understand the dependance of depth-of-field on aperture yourself. Do the same with shutter-speed: switch to shutter-speed priority mode, and shoot in different shutter speeds (N.B: Use a tripod), until you are finally able to appreciate the dependance of images on different shutter speeds.
Remember, both modes are semi-automatic (also semi-manual) modes; you'll set the aperture yourself, and the camera will choose the shutter-speed itself, and vice-versa. So, there'll be cases where the image will blow-out, be silhouetted etc etc. It's because the camera's processor isn't smart as a human brain; it's unable to appreciate the differences in conditions that the human eye-brain system can.
So, it's your duty to make the camera do what you want it to do. Letting the camera make it's own decisions (the auto mode), and letting it give half of the decision, while you choose the other half (the shutter-speed priority and aperture priority modes), will not give you images as you want them to be. So, if you want your images to be the way you want them to be, switch to manual mode, and start shooting. It lets you into your camera, and explore every corner of the camera world. Mistakes are likely to happen, until you become fully capable to strike the balance between the elements of the 'EXPOSURE TRIANGLE'. But don't let mistakes slow you down. Scrutinize your previous mistakes (recall, I told you to keep previous images in your hard-drive), and correct them as you move on.
Shooting in manual might be a bit challenging at first, because you have to set shutter-speed, aperture and ISO at the same time. While shooting in daylight, keep the ISO at the lowest. And as you advance gradually, and master more techniques, your tripod will be your wife during shooting. Like Scott Kelby said, shoot every photo using a tripod; you'll get hang of this fact as you master more skills and techniques. In the broad daylight, photos shot without a tripod may look error-less on the camera's LCD, but when you come home and view those images on your computer screen, you'll notice the image has a noticeable blur. I'm not saying that every image shot without a tripod will have this blur; images shot with very fast shutter-speeds will not show any blur in them. But even in daylight, in normal cases, the exposure time don't go lower than 1/600 secs, which is enough to induce blur in the image due to shaking. So, if you want your photos tack-sharp, always use a tripod.
Now, while setting aperture and shutter-speed, keep one thing in mind:
While setting aperture, moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light coming into the sensor; and a change in shutter-speed from one stop to the next also doubles or halves the amount of light coming into the sensor. So, if you increase one and decrease another by the same stop, you are letting the same amount of light into your camera as previous.
Now, go out and start shooting. It's very important to understand the inter-dependance of shutter-speed and aperture; and practice is needed before you are finally able to strike the balance between the two. At first, due to improper choice of shutter-speed and aperture, some images will be blown out; some will be silhouetted and some will be blurred. You are to find the perfect balance yourself by shooting more and more images. For knowing aperture, go to aperture priority mode, choose a subject with a prominent background; focus primarily on the subject and shoot images with different apertures; preferably from lowest available to highest available. You will be able to understand the dependance of depth-of-field on aperture yourself. Do the same with shutter-speed: switch to shutter-speed priority mode, and shoot in different shutter speeds (N.B: Use a tripod), until you are finally able to appreciate the dependance of images on different shutter speeds.
Remember, both modes are semi-automatic (also semi-manual) modes; you'll set the aperture yourself, and the camera will choose the shutter-speed itself, and vice-versa. So, there'll be cases where the image will blow-out, be silhouetted etc etc. It's because the camera's processor isn't smart as a human brain; it's unable to appreciate the differences in conditions that the human eye-brain system can.
So, it's your duty to make the camera do what you want it to do. Letting the camera make it's own decisions (the auto mode), and letting it give half of the decision, while you choose the other half (the shutter-speed priority and aperture priority modes), will not give you images as you want them to be. So, if you want your images to be the way you want them to be, switch to manual mode, and start shooting. It lets you into your camera, and explore every corner of the camera world. Mistakes are likely to happen, until you become fully capable to strike the balance between the elements of the 'EXPOSURE TRIANGLE'. But don't let mistakes slow you down. Scrutinize your previous mistakes (recall, I told you to keep previous images in your hard-drive), and correct them as you move on.
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