Low light shoot - manual vs auto

Moog

Moog

Well-known member
Ok.
I'm gonna put this out there. This is going to make me look very foolish. Very foolish indeed.

I've discovered something...well. Embarrasing.
I know my way round a camera pretty well. I shoot manual. Of COURSE I do.
BUT...

When I try to shoot in dark conditions, I've never had much luck. So the other day, i did something... unthinkable. I put my camera on <deep breath> auto.

To my surprise, it looked better. ALOT better.

So my questoin is this. What's my auto setting doing that I'm not? Does it dynamically adjust gain with greater granularity that I have control over?

A bit vague i know, but does anyone have any thoughts on why this is, or what I can do to get better results in manual mode?

cheers

moog
 
Auto would have opened the iris all the way, and also allows the camera to use up to 6dB of gain. It can vary the gain up to the max you set, so perhaps it was using only 3dB?
 
The weird thing is, even when 'I' open up the iiris full and play with the shutter, my results are still not as good looking as.... auto bot. grrr

strange...
 
Auto should not be changing the shutter speed. In the "Auto SW" menu you can see the four controls that auto should be allowed to change - white balance, gain, iris, and focus. So maybe it's a white balance issue?
 
Hmmm - maybe. I'll have to investigate this with all those ideas in mind. Thanks to you all for your input.
 
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