tomcat

meow, Linda. purr purr purr

jackpinoh Loc: Kettering, OH 45419

You've got it! In manual mode, you may miss the show because of the time it takes to adjust the exposure. Aperture Priority is faster--easier to ensure you get the shot. Note that The Exposure Compensation control will work in Aperture priority mode, but not in Manual mode.

rjrcatz

Beautiful photo! Love the eyes!

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

fotoman150

I use manual almost exclusively and rarely miss a shot. I have gotten to the point where I get can guess the settings I need pretty accurately.

I do a lot of portraits outdoors and I start out wanting to blur the background. That gives me my aperture. Then I guess at the shutter speed, then look at the meter in the viewfinder and adjust from there, take a test shot and look at the histogram.

I almost never use any other mode but manual. Works for me.

If you use the other modes you never get to where you can guess accurately yourself.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

I shoot aperture or shutter priority most of the time, with auto iso..... For landscapes and still stuff where lighting stays pretty constant, I will go full manual and set base ISO f stop I want for DOF then shutter speed for a correct exposure.....different situations, different setups.

PierreD

This is what I use all the time, Grahame: Manual (with preset values for shutter (e.g., 1/250 sec) and aperture (e.g., f/8)) which can both be increased or increased manually in no time at all, and then Auto ISO (up to ISO 1600 in my case). This approach works really well and is, indeed, very fast and in practice, rarely a good excuse for a missed shot.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I'm capable of shooting in most modes; mostly M, Av, Tv. I've played with ISOv, Sv (Sensitivity Priority on Pentax), P. As well as a few flash and interval modes. But about 85% of the time I'll shoot with Av when I can. About another 10% of the time with Manual. Sometimes I'll use AF and other times MF, and even sometimes Live View. I started shooting in Aperture Priority from Manual back when I bought a film Pentax K2 DMD. Even when I'm in an Auto mode I watch what other parameters the camera is choosing.

Seeing as most of my photography with Landscapes, Close-ups of flowers and sea shells, Architectural (as object art, not for commercial purposes) and Abstract Images, I'm in no rush about "missing a shot". I rarely do sports or action photography. Though I used to shoot a lot of music event / concert / bar photography and of course worked a bit different for that.

I recently purchased a Fuji X-100T (Mirrorless Rangefinder Camera) and so may learn a number of other shooting mode techniques.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Mostly shutter priority to control camera shake, but I use every setting at various times even GASP-auto.

IDguy Loc: Idaho

Silly to stick your thumb in the loop when you bought a camera that will do it for you.

I only use M when needed for special reasons and most often with auto ISO.

craggycrossers Loc: Robin Hood Country, UK

Yeah, I use the histogram in the EVF, and also make sure the "blinkies" are activated as well. I tend not to use auto ISO, as I increase it only if exposure doesn't quite work within my other two parameters. Tend not to use exposure comp much at all. And once you get to know Fuji X-Series there's little need to check the image to see if tweaks are needed. With experience of where to start with aperture and shutter speed for a given situation, and practice...… good habits are created and nurtured. !

Dennis833 Loc: Australia

I've been shooting in aperture priority long before it was given a name. Even with a large format camera. I always select the aperture first to get the depth of field that is required for each landscape shot. With todays cameras it much faster to leave your camera in aperture priority mode and only go to manual if you have to.

george19

There was a time, way back, when meters started being incorporated into cameras. My first SLR, a Canon TLb (younger brother of the FTb), had a needle and a dot in the viewfinder. Pick an aperture or shutter speed, stop the lens down with a lever so the meter could read the actual light entering the lens, and adjust one or the other to get what you want. Of course, stopping the lens down usually interfered with the focus prism, so do that first.

Shortly after, contacts on the lens (and a newer camera) meant you didn’t have to stop it down.

A few years later, you could pick a shutter speed and the camera would pick an aperture (I think Canon started this). Nikon countered with picking an aperture and the camera would pick your shutter speed. A minor war broke out over which was better.

All this was in parallel to the light meter method argument: center spot, scene average, center weighted. And remember, your ISO was set by whatever film you had loaded.

Today you can select any of these options within pretty much any camera...but this is the path that got us here...one incremental change at a time.

BebuLamar

I believe that Peterson invented the triangle. There wouldn't be the triangle without him. Not that the triangle is necessary. I don't think Ansel Adams knew about the triangle although Peterson coined the term a few years before Adams passed away.

PierreD

"Silly to stick your thumb in the loop when you bought a camera that will do it for you."

Well, not at all, actually: When you photograph in conditions that change pretty much all the time and rather unpredictably from one picture to the next, as is often the case for wildlife, in particular, it pays to be ready and able to change the shutter speed and aperture on short notice, and from one frame to the next. This is where shooting in manual mode comes handy. But if conditions are more predictable, e.g., portrait or landscape, then, sure, using aperture priority probably makes more sense. So, it all depends on your kind of photography, IMO.