When you first buy a digital SLR, there are several forces in play. You want to learn how to use this beautiful piece of equipment you just purchased but you also want pictures to look at and share immediately. The latter is known as immediate gratification and in my experience it almost always trumps the learning force. We all rationalize that learning about all the camera's buttons will come and it eventually does but a little further down the road. For now we set our cameras to Automatic, letting the camera make all of our decisions for us - happy to simply see results. My camera manual refers to the "Auto" setting as the "Point-and-Shoot setting which certainly has a place in our lives but every day? Why did you buy a DSLR if you wanted to "point-and-shoot"?
The next logical step up the bravery ladder is to use some of the automatic "Scene Modes" on the Mode Dial and these are designated by several easily understood symbols. They are still fully automatic but you can select the mode that more specifically fits your shooting circumstances. See you're already thinking about light, motion, and most importantly the results that you want. On my Nikon D90 there are five Scene modes and this is fairly typical on a DSLR you might buy at the start. They are: Portrait (for portraits what else), Landscape (for just that), Close up (for shots of flowers, bees, and other little things), Sports (for moving objects), and Night portrait (for portraits under low light). There are similar settings for Canons like those on this 30D.
For each of these modes, the camera makes assumptions about your subject matter and thus decides upon the shutter speed, aperture, and even the focus point. When I started, I was shooting a lot of surfers and running children at the beach, and I rarely moved off the sports setting - wanting to see good images as I was learning how to capture and frame these "moving objects".
Nikon D60 at 200mm on Sports Mode: 1/1000 sec at f/5.6, Auto ISO resulted in ISO 140
In Sports Mode the camera allows only AWB (Auto-White Balance) & Matrix Metering
As a bi-product of using this automatic setting, I read the metadata on my pictures and learned what shutter speeds stopped the action, what aperture was selected by the camera in the process, and what I liked and disliked.
Moving beyond the camera's automatic settings, semi-automatic is the next rung on the ladder and these include P, S, A, and M - Programmed automatic, Shutter speed, Aperture, and Manual (why the User's Manual rolls the latter into the semi-automatic modes is a puzzle to me).
- P - In Programmed automatic, the camera will adjust the shutter speed and aperture for the optimal exposure, but you can change one of these depending on your situation and the camera will adjust the other.
- S - In Shutter-Priority Mode, you select the shutter speed and the camera will automatically select the aperture to produce what it assumes will be the best exposure. This is used for all manner of moving objects from planes to flowers moving in a breeze.
- A - Set to Aperture-Priority, you select the aperture to control the depth-of-field (See the post "D is for Depth of Field" here on LLC) and the camera automatically selects a shutter speed that will create an optimal exposure. This is used for landscapes but also when you want to create that Differential Focus effect we discussed in the last post.
I should also note here, that in these semi-automatic modes, you - the photographer - also determine the focus point, the white balance, the ISO, etc. It's a lot of responsibility but a heck of a lot of fun.
- M - In Manual exposure mode, you control everything - shutter speed and aperture are no longer inextricably tied to one another - they are now uncoupled and you decide the setting for each, along with all that other stuff.
The first time I used Manual mode, I felt like it was graduation day. Don't get me wrong, it was a challenge because I had to "think like the camera" and ask myself why the camera needed the setting I was providing and what effect I thought it would produce, but what a feeling of accomplishment, when I saw my images and they turned out pretty good.
Nikon D60 on Manual Exposure Mode: 30.0 seconds at f/10; ISO 200
Night photography often requires shooting in manual mode and lots of trial and error!
Now all of the Exposure Mode settings on the dial are in my arsenal and I can choose when to use which one - but that only came from practicing and seeing the results using fully-automatic, semi-automatic, and finally the manual exposure modes. When you start, the camera is technically in charge, and by practicing and learning you take creative control. Enjoy the journey!