3 months of manual photography taught me these important lessons

January through March 2024 I decided to remove all automatics from my photography. This means M mode of course, but also white balance, flash and focusing. This is what I learned.

The point of this exercise was to see what’s what; how well do I actually know all the settings that go into a capture? Which of the automatics do I value the most and what will I keep controlling manually? Could I get by without any of it?

The weapons of choice

I own two cameras, the Fujifilm X-T4 and the X-E4. They are technologically the same camera, but what the X-T4 adds in features, the X-E4 makes up for in simplicity and portability, so I went with that.

Since I was going for manual everything I though I might as well go with a fully manual lens as well. And since these are dark months in Norway, it made sense to add some reach, so I went and bought the 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4. I already own the Fujinon 33mm f/1.4 LM WR, which is an excellent piece of glass, but it’s not exactly compact. The 7Artisans promises the same basic properties, but in a tiny package.