moonhawk wrote:
The point is knowing what settings are being used by your equipment. I use aperture priority, but I sometimes adjust it just for the aperture, sometimes I spin the aperture dial until I get the shutter speed I want. Sometimes, I need to adjust the ISO.
The point is knowing what settings you use, and why, not how you get there.
And Mark is right--light and composition are the most important aspects. But you need to know how to use your camera settings to get the most of them.
Moonhawk is entirely right IMHO as I think the priority modes are a great base for accomplishing whatever your current task is.... Spinning the dials to keep the holy trinity in balance and then comping in different ways to achieve your end result seems a lot more efficient than beginning strictly in manual; do your final tweaking and the end result will be a capture that you are satisfied with and as a bonus you will also have learned a little more about your camera.