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Manual Controls

By Kyle Schurman, About.com

Definition: Manual controls are the settings on a digital camera that the photographer controls manually. For example, a photographer may want to set the shutter speed and aperture manually to create a particular look in a photograph. The ability to manually control certain settings on the digital camera usually is limited to advanced models.

Contrast manual controls with fully automatic settings, where the camera sets every aspect of the photograph without input from the photographer.

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