Are you guilty of over complicating your shoots?
Or guilty because you treat your 'fancy camera' like a point and shoot?
If you go on YouTube, or talk to other photographers for any length of time, gear and settings almost always come up - what gear did you use, or what were your settings?
Then there's the perverse focus on shooting manual - like being able to control the exposure triangle manually somehow makes you better - like you're shooting film in 1950 or something, when what should matter is creativity and getting results you like.
I'm an old fart who learnt photography on film in the last century, and when comparing film and digital (with maybe the exception of 6x7 or large format film), I'd take digital any day of the week.
Why?
'Cause you see what you get, and on top of that modern sensors and exposure algorithms will get you pretty close 90ish percent of the time (especially if you shoot RAW), if you leave metering up to the camera.
Most of the time my camera's in aperture priority mode - I control the aperture for depth of field, and the camera takes care of the rest. And to make things worse I'm often at f5.6 or f8 and probably zone focusing - so I literally 'point and shoot'.
I'm not missing images futzing around with camera controls,
I'm focusing on what matters - getting the image.
Yes I'll depart from the camera's recommendations with the exposure comp dial fairly regularly, or play with the shutter - dragging it to induce motion blur, or pushing it to freeze motion, but even then I'm probably still in Auto ISO.
In fact the only time I really shoot manually is in the studio
In studio manual settings make it easier to work with strobes, or blend strobes with constant LEDs - but I'm using manual there because it's easier, suits my workflow, and suits the lighting. Plus I have the time to craft images rather than capturing moments in street or landscape photography.
And even then I'll probably be using 1/250 second, ISO 160 (my camera's sync speed, and base ISO) and apertures of f8 to f16 unless I'm blending strobe and constant light.
It's all about creativity, shooting simply, and getting the camera out of the way.
If you're still not convinced, or a beginner feeling like a fraud as you use your camera in auto, watch the video below from Commercial Photographer Scott Choucino
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