Back to Basics – Mastering Manual Mode on Your DSLR
SHUTTER MASTERY / BACK TO BASICS
From switching it on to choosing your own settings.
Learn what to change, why to change it and how to create the photograph you have in mind.
Perhaps your camera has spent more time in its bag than in your hands. Perhaps you use Auto and sometimes get a photograph you love, but cannot explain why it worked. Back to Basics gives you a practical route from those first steps to understanding and using Manual mode.
A clear goal for your first day
The course is designed to take you from turning on your camera for the first time to making deliberate choices in Manual mode within a day of focused learning and practice.
Follow it as a dedicated learning day or spread the lessons and exercises across shorter sessions. You can pause, repeat a demonstration and practise until the decisions start to feel familiar.
Built from teaching real beginners
Join photographer and tutor Darren Woolway for an online course developed from his one-day workshop, taught to more than 1,500 students.
You will start with the camera itself, including essential controls, lenses and focusing, before exploring how each exposure setting changes your photograph. Key ideas return throughout the demonstrations so you can see them working in different situations.
APERTURE
Choose the depth
Explore soft backgrounds, subject separation and keeping more of a scene acceptably sharp.
SHUTTER SPEED
Shape the movement
Freeze action, introduce deliberate motion blur and practise panning for a sense of speed.
ISO
Balance the result
Understand image brightness and noise, and use ISO to support the aperture and shutter speed you need.
Watch it happen. Try it yourself.
Real-world demonstrations connect the settings to visible results. Follow shutter-speed experiments at Brands Hatch, explore depth of field with seed heads, and bring your decisions together with beach huts and a moving flag.
You can practise the same principles with everyday subjects close to home. Each experiment gives you something specific to change, observe and compare.
01
Understand the choice
See what each setting controls and decide which effect you want.
02
Make the photograph
Follow the practical exercises using your own camera and subjects.
03
Review and adjust
Check the result, identify what needs changing and try again with a clear reason.
Bring it together in Manual mode
The Manual Mode Checklist gives you a repeatable process to take into your own photography. Learn to start with aperture when depth of field matters most, or shutter speed when movement is your priority, then balance the remaining settings.
Along the way, you will explore composition, white balance, RAW and JPEG, metering and histograms, helping you judge the photograph as well as operate the camera.
“I know what I want this photograph to look like, and I know which setting to change.”
That is the confidence this course is designed to build.
What is included
- Video lessons with practical demonstrations and guided experiments.
- Lesson summaries and transcripts to revisit as you practise.
- Quizzes and interactive learning activities to check your understanding.
- Downloadable exercise instructions and reference guides, including the Manual Mode Checklist.
- A Facebook community where you can share your experiments, ask questions and learn from other photographers.
Buy once. Keep learning.
Your enrolment includes lifetime access, future updates to this course and additional course resources as they are added.
Work through the course at your own pace, repeat the experiments and return to the lessons whenever you need a reminder.