Good. This is where you should start from. Now you should be able to play around with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO and see what the each do to the image.
What you should notice is that the smaller the aperture number the less there will be in focus and the lighter the image will get, the larger the number the darker everything will become and the more will be in focus. A fast shutter speed will freeze motion and make things darker, slower will blur motion and make things lighter.
A small ISO number 100, 200, 400 will have less noise than the higher numbers but the higher numbers allow to you take lighter better exposed images in dark places. By knowing how these three settings affect your photo you should be able to have more creative control over how the image looks.
I did some tests changing the Aperture, which I remember like this - its like the iris of the eye, the wider (higher) the Aperture setting the more light comes in, the narrower (lower) the Aperture setting the less light comes in - again very similar to the human eye (but ours is fully auto - now a camera that can duplicate the eye would be amazing)
As for ISO I usually stick to around 200 as it seems to be the most common setting as most of my test pics are outdoors in sunlight or dusk / dawn, despite less noise, but yes the higher number would be handy in low-lit areas and the LCD displays the difference almost instantly
, despite higher ISO introducing noise - its a catch 22. I admit using Manual feels better, and thats a big change for me as I've use all digital still cameras (non DSLR) in this mode because I believed its better to let the computer decide the best settings - and logically this does seem to make sense for some odd reason.
Remember I'm going from over 20 years using Ditgital Still Cameras on Auto straight to a Canon 60D DSLR - so its quite a wide gap and so much to learn
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That's good, the photos should look identical. Remember, there are also modes in-between full auto and full manual. Personally I would recommend using Programmed Mode (P) as this has the camera make shutter speed and aperture decisions but allows you to over ride if the camera made the wrong choice. This way you can learn how the camera does things (and usually it gets the exposure correct) but also make your own creative decisions.
In general I would stay away from Full Auto since you'll lose all control and it won't help you learn how your camera works or how photography in general works.
I used the P mode in my original photos on the first page of this thread, then I was asked my I chose P mode instead of Manual. Obviously programmed won't give you the same overrides as Manual, so it seems to be a bit auto and a bit manual - half and half. I agree with full auto its very easy and convenient, but you don't really learn the finer aspects to DSLR photography as its doing all the work for you - you simply press the button and the rest is a mystery.
A trick I could use is to only use Auto to find out the aperture, ISO, f setting, then switch to manual and use that as a base for settings and work from there - if that makes sense, but I think staying away form Auto altogether is the best option.
