So how did you all get on with the leap into Manual?  Were you able to bring together the lessons of the year so far?

Here are my examples from the challenge:

Landscape:

Actually this first photo from the National Gallery in London on a rainy February evening could also count for sports, given the movement of the people.  This was actually a ridiculously long shutter speed to be doing without a tripod, but there was a lot of holding of breath involved!

This was taken at around the same time, but this time I had two people standing stock still in the foreground, I kind of liked the one with the umbrella looking into the photo.

This was taken a good 500 miles north at Loch Tay, where there was a little paddling involved to get this shot.  It was early May and the weather was very changeable, so I was standing in sun while there were dark, looming clouds over the snowcapped mountains.

Portrait:

This was taken on the same day in London as the first two shots.  I was with a group doing a challenge to walk up to random strangers and ask to take their photos.  We were in Covent Garden at the time, and I just found this woman to be rather striking.  She agreed to me taking the photo as long as she didn’t have to see it!

Sport:

Just to prove that we do, on occasion, get blue skies in Scotland, this was at the Glasgow show, and I just caught this guy as he was coming in to land, and a fast shutter speed allowed me to catch the flag like this:

So at this point you can decide if you always want to shoot Manual, or whether you would prefer to be semi-automated with Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority mode, or even a combination of both.  Personally I prefer Manual because I find it quicker to flick all the settings about to get the results I want.  My dad, who’s been at this considerably longer than I’ve been on this earth *cough* 50-odd years *cough*, prefers to use Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority modes as appropriate, as he finds it faster to change settings that way.  Whatever floats yer boat, as they say!

Now there are some times when Manual is definitely preferable, especially when working with flash or studio lights, as they will override the limitations of shutter speed and aperture combinations to a certain extent by providing more light, but we’ll come to those later in the series.

So let’s see what you got!  P.S. I discovered when I went to create this link up that InLinkz hadn’t been e-mailing me to let me know when someone linked up, so I apologise if I haven’t kept up with your submissions, please let me know if I missed you!