Why does night photography require the use of manual controls while daytime photography can get by with Auto Mode?
In: 2
Your camera guesses from what is in the frame what you intend to take a picture of and in most situations it guesses correctly and exposes for that.
The problem at night is that it is not clear what the goal is.
Do you intend to take a picture of what is close to what is in darkness and what needs to use the flash? Do you intend to make a long-time exposure to the dark scene? How could the camera know the correct answer? If it guess incorrectly you need manual settings.
Even if it is a long time exposed is it the ground, stars or the moon that is what you intend to capture? all of them can require different amounts of exposure.
The result is if your goal is the same as the camera guesses you need to use manual control, there can also exist an appropriate mode for what you capture
Auto mode does not work all the time during the day either. Take a picture a person standing in a door where it is dark with bright light behind them .It the goal that the are just a silhouette you you like to see them? The camera can only guess.
You can often on phones click out what you are the intended subject. In regular cameras, it is done in a slightly different way. So auto mode does not work all the time during the day just most of the time.
If you look at more professional and advanced amateurs you will see more manual control than for the general public. This is because even during the day for example a change in aperture size has an effect on the image like the amount that is in focus. So there is multiple ways of capturing the same scene, non is right or wrong all depending on the situation.
Look for an example at https://cloudfront.slrlounge.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/aperture-depth-of-field-example.jpg the same image with different depths of field. I would ay aperture f/2 looks better as a portrait but what if a famous building is in the background and you like to have it in focus too? A camera can’t know that so that auto mode works during the day is a bit of a simplification.
Latest Answers