Top 14 'Exposure-Triangle' Photography Tips to Practice on a Walk for Beginners Ready to Master Manual Mode - Goh Ling Yong
So you've unboxed your shiny new camera, marveled at its capabilities, and... left it firmly in 'Auto' mode. Don't worry, you're not alone. That dial full of intimidating letters and numbers can feel like the control panel of a spaceship. But inside that complexity lies the key to unlocking your creative vision: Manual Mode. The secret to taming it isn't a magical formula, but a simple concept called the 'Exposure Triangle'.
The Exposure Triangle is the fundamental relationship between the three pillars of photography: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. Think of them as three dials you can turn to control the light and look of your image. Aperture controls the depth of field (how much is in focus), Shutter Speed controls motion (freezing it or blurring it), and ISO controls the camera's sensitivity to light. Mastering how they work together is the single most important step you can take to move from taking snapshots to creating photographs.
But reading about theory is one thing; putting it into practice is another. That's why we've designed this guide as a "photo walk"—a series of 14 simple, actionable exercises you can do on a casual walk around your neighborhood, a park, or even your own backyard. The goal isn't to come back with a portfolio of masterpieces, but to build muscle memory and an intuitive understanding of how your camera truly works. Let's get started.
1. Ease In with Aperture Priority (A/Av)
Before diving headfirst into full Manual mode, dip your toes in the water with Aperture Priority. On your camera dial, this is labeled 'A' (for Nikon, Sony, etc.) or 'Av' (for Canon). In this mode, you choose the aperture and the ISO, and the camera automatically selects the correct shutter speed for a balanced exposure.
This is the perfect training ground. It lets you focus on one creative element—depth of field—without juggling all three variables at once. Your mission for the first part of your walk is simple: stay in this mode. Practice changing your aperture from its lowest number (e.g., f/1.8) to a high number (e.g., f/16) and watch how the shutter speed changes automatically to compensate.
2. Freeze Motion with a Fast Shutter Speed
Now, let's switch to Shutter Priority ('S' or 'Tv') or go full Manual ('M'). Find something that's moving. It could be a person jogging, a car driving by, a flag waving in the wind, or a bird taking flight. Your goal is to freeze that motion completely, capturing a crisp, sharp image.
To do this, you need a fast shutter speed. Start with 1/500th of a second (written as 1/500s). Take a shot. Is the motion still a little blurry? Increase the speed to 1/1000s or even 1/2000s. Notice that as you increase the shutter speed, you're letting in less light. You'll need to compensate by either using a wider aperture (lower f-stop number) or increasing your ISO to maintain the right exposure.
3. Create Intentional Motion Blur
The opposite of freezing motion is embracing it. A slow shutter speed can transform moving elements into beautiful, artistic blurs. This is fantastic for water, like a park fountain or a stream, turning it silky and smooth. It also works for creating light trails from cars at dusk or conveying the rush of a busy street.
Find your moving subject and set your shutter speed to something slow, like 1/15s or even a full second (1"). Because the shutter is open for so long, you'll need to keep the camera perfectly still to ensure your stationary surroundings are sharp. Brace your camera on a bench, a wall, or use a tripod if you have one. To avoid a completely white, overexposed image, you'll need to use a very narrow aperture (like f/22) and the lowest possible ISO (like 100).
4. Master Depth of Field on a Stationary Subject
This is a classic exercise for a reason. Find a single, stationary object—a park bench, a fire hydrant, a flower, a unique doorknob. Place yourself a few feet away and set your camera to Aperture Priority or Manual mode.
Take three distinct photos. First, use the widest aperture your lens allows (e.g., f/1.8, f/2.8, f/4). This should create a very shallow depth of field, where only your subject is sharp and the background is a creamy blur. Next, set your aperture to a mid-range like f/8. Notice how more of the background is now in focus. Finally, use a narrow aperture like f/16. In this shot, almost everything from front to back should be sharp. Comparing these three images side-by-side is an "a-ha!" moment for understanding aperture.
5. Use a Wide Aperture to Isolate Your Subject
Now let's apply that knowledge creatively. The world is often visually cluttered. One of a photographer's most powerful tools is the ability to guide the viewer's eye. A wide aperture (low f-stop number) is perfect for this. It isolates your subject, making them pop from a distracting background.
Find a subject—a friend, a pet, an interesting statue—in front of a busy background like a crowded market, a street with lots of signs, or a forest with many trees. Use your widest aperture. Focus carefully on your subject's eyes (if it's a person or animal). The resulting image will have a sharp, clear subject against a beautifully blurred backdrop, instantly making your photo feel more professional and intentional.
6. Tell a Story with Deep Depth of Field
While blurred backgrounds are popular, sometimes the background is just as important as the foreground. For landscape and street photography, you often want everything in the scene to be tack-sharp to tell a complete story. This requires a deep depth of field, achieved with a narrow aperture.
Find a scene with interesting elements in the foreground, middle ground, and background. This could be a path leading to a distant building, with flowers along the sides. Set your aperture to a high f-stop number, like f/11 or f/16. Because you're letting in less light, you'll likely need a slower shutter speed, so hold the camera steady. The resulting image will invite the viewer's eye to wander through the entire scene, taking in all the details you've composed.
7. Understand Your Base ISO in Bright Daylight
Think of ISO as a last resort. In bright, sunny conditions, you want to keep your ISO at its base value, which is typically ISO 100 or 200. This will give you the cleanest, highest-quality image with the least amount of digital "noise" or grain.
On a sunny part of your walk, set your ISO to 100 and leave it there. Your challenge is to get a perfect exposure using only aperture and shutter speed. This forces you to understand their relationship. If you want a blurry background (wide aperture), you'll need a very fast shutter speed to compensate for all the light flooding in. If you want everything in focus (narrow aperture), you'll need a slower shutter speed. This is the core dance of the exposure triangle.
8. Push Your ISO in the Shade
Now, find a shaded area—under a large tree, in a narrow alleyway, or under a bridge. The amount of available light is much lower here. Try to take a photo with your ISO still at 100. You'll quickly find that to get a good exposure, you either need an extremely wide aperture or a shutter speed so slow that you can't possibly hand-hold the camera without getting a blurry mess.
This is where ISO becomes your friend. To maintain a hand-holdable shutter speed (a good rule of thumb is 1/[focal length], e.g., 1/50s for a 50mm lens), you'll need to increase your ISO. Take a shot at ISO 400, then 800, then 1600. When you review the photos later, zoom in and look for the digital noise. This teaches you the trade-off: higher ISO lets you shoot in darker conditions, but at the cost of some image quality.
9. The "One-Stop" Reciprocity Challenge
This exercise sounds technical, but it's a game-changer for building an intuitive feel for exposure. "Stops" are standardized doublings or halvings of light. Changing your aperture from f/2.8 to f/4 is one stop less light. Changing your shutter from 1/125s to 1/250s is also one stop less light.
Find a subject and dial in a perfect exposure in Manual mode—for example, ISO 100, f/4, and 1/250s. Now, change one setting by one stop (e.g., close your aperture to f/5.6, which is one stop darker). Your image is now underexposed. To fix it, you must change another setting by one stop in the opposite direction. You could either slow your shutter speed to 1/125s (one stop brighter) or raise your ISO to 200 (one stop brighter). The exposure will be identical, but the look (depth of field or potential for motion blur) will be different. Practice this a few times to master the concept of equivalent exposures.
10. Intentionally Underexpose for a Silhouette
Your camera's light meter wants to create a "correct," balanced exposure. But sometimes, the most dramatic shot is an incorrect one. A silhouette is a perfect example of intentionally underexposing your subject to create a powerful, graphic shape against a bright background.
The best time for this is sunrise or sunset, but any scene with a very bright background will work. Position your subject (a person, a tree, a statue) in front of the brightest part of the sky. Now, instead of pointing your camera at the subject, point it at the bright sky next to them and check your settings. Lock those settings in (or just keep them in mind), then re-compose your shot with the subject in the frame and click. By exposing for the bright background, your subject will be thrown into deep shadow, creating a striking silhouette.
11. Learn to Read and Trust Your Light Meter
Look through your viewfinder. You'll see a small scale that looks something like this: -2...-1...0...1...2. This is your light meter, and it's your best friend in Manual mode. When the indicator is at '0', the camera believes the scene is perfectly exposed. When it's at -1, it's one stop underexposed, and at +1, it's one stop overexposed.
Spend some time just playing with this. Point your camera at something and adjust your settings until the meter reads '0'. Then, intentionally change your settings to make the meter read '+1' and take a shot. Then do the same for '-1'. This exercise teaches you what the camera thinks is right, and seeing the over- and under-exposed results teaches you how to deviate from that for creative effect.
12. The "Constant Subject, Changing Light" Drill
This is a high-level exercise that really separates beginners from those in control of their gear. It’s a concept that professional photographers like Goh Ling Yong use constantly to handle tricky lighting. Find a subject that is lit by two different light sources, like a person standing in a doorway who is half in the bright sun and half in the dark shadow of the interior.
Your challenge is to take two photos. For the first, use your camera’s spot metering mode (if it has one) and expose for the bright, sunlit part of their face. The shadows will become very dark, almost black. For the second photo, expose for the part of their face that's in shadow. The sunlit part will now be completely blown out and pure white. This teaches you a critical lesson about "dynamic range"—the range of tones your camera can capture at once. You learn that sometimes you have to choose which part of the image is most important to expose correctly.
13. Bracket Your Exposures in High-Contrast Scenes
Building on the last tip, sometimes a scene has too much contrast between the brightest highlights and darkest shadows for a single photo to capture it all (like a bright sky and a dark foreground). Bracketing is the solution. Many cameras have an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) function that does this automatically.
If you have it, turn it on. If not, do it manually. Frame your high-contrast landscape. Take one photo at the "correct" exposure (meter at '0'). Take a second photo that is underexposed by one stop (meter at '-1'). Take a third photo that is overexposed by one stop (meter at '+1'). While these images are often combined later in software (for HDR photography), the exercise itself is invaluable. It forces you to see the full range of light in a scene and gives you options to choose from later.
14. The Final, Crucial Step: Review Your EXIF Data
Your photo walk isn't over when you get home. The learning truly solidifies when you review your work. Import your photos onto a computer and use software (like Adobe Lightroom, or even the default viewer on your OS) to look at the EXIF data for each image. This data is a digital record of every setting you used: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.
Look at your favorite shot of the day. What were the settings? Why did they work? Now look at a photo that didn't turn out—one that's blurry or too dark. What were those settings? Did you use a shutter speed that was too slow to hand-hold? Was your aperture too wide, causing you to miss focus? Connecting the settings you chose to the final result is the feedback loop that will make you a better photographer faster than anything else.
Your Journey Starts Now
Mastering the exposure triangle is a journey, not a destination. It’s about building an intuition so that when you see a potential photograph, your brain and hands already know how to translate that vision into the right camera settings. It’s about replacing hesitation with confidence.
So, charge your battery, grab your camera, and head out the door. Don't worry about perfection. Give yourself permission to experiment, to make mistakes, and to learn from them. This walk is your classroom, and these exercises are your lesson plan.
What are you waiting for? Go take some photos, and when you get back, share your favorite shot and the settings you used in the comments below! We'd love to see what you create.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
Stay updated with the latest posts and insights by following on your favorite platform!