Every camera has an "Auto" mode. Your camera has a remarkable ability to sense the amount of light in a scene, and - bless its high-tech image processor - it adjusts everything for you if you just stay in Auto mode. Sounds great, huh? Well, there are two problems that you'll run into if you go the Auto route.
Problem #1: Your camera doesn't see light the way your eyes do.
Your eye is in itself an amazing piece of handiwork that technology hasn't been able to replicate. It can sense both subtle and dramatic changes in lighting conditions, processing it all at the same time. Let's suppose for example that you're enjoying the great outdoors on a snowy, winter day. You can clearly see the texture of the snow as well as all the subtle tones of landscape features. It's a completely normal part of our experience. But it's something a machine can't do perfectly.
Your camera, on the other hand, sees things differently. While enjoying the fresh-fallen snow, you pull out your camera, flip it into Auto mode, and shoot away. What happens? The image processor in your camera says to itself, "this scene is way too light. I'll darken it up a bit." The problem is, the snow may take on a gray tone, and if any of your friends appear in the picture, they too will be underexposed. Shooting in Auto mode can be convenient, but there are times when it simply doesn't work well. Bottom line: the smartest camera is unable to automatically adjust the exposure of individual elements in an image. Instead, it averages the exposure on everything.
The photo above was taken in automatic mode. I didn't do any post-processing on it, other than cropping and changing the resolution so that it fits properly into this post. You may notice that the flash went off. The camera recognized that the scene was bright, and that the subject was backlit. So it set off the flash.
But what happens if you don't want your camera to do that? That leads us to the other issue you run into in Auto mode.
Problem #2: Automatic mode doesn't allow for many creative techniques.
Suppose you want to do a portrait of a friend outdoors. You want the background to be blurry, so the viewer's attention is honed in on your friend. Or perhaps you want to take a picture of a fountain, and you want to convey a sense of movement in the water by blurring it. These are things you can't do in automatic mode, because your camera is making all the decisions for you.
Does this mean that Auto mode won't be of any value to you? Absolutely not. It's a great way to get accustomed to a new camera. But ultimately, if you keep everything on autopilot, your growth as a creative photographer will be stunted.
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