Got it, Steve. An "old dog" like me never thinks of "Auto ISO" because, I suppose, 30+ years of shooting slides with film Nikons never prepared me for such a thing. Not sure how that might be better for me than letting camera choose a stepless SS rather than a "stepless" ISO, but I can certainly understand how it works for you. OF course, you shoot far more wildlife than this old landscape guy, so getting the exact SS desired is much more important for you. Should I find myself in your shoes out in the field, I'll likely follow your lead. Good tip, thanks.

Now that Chaostrain's poll has been out there a few days, and we have learned that "about" 8-out-of-every-10 Hogs set their camera exposure controls manually, I'm just curious (as Chaostrain was originally) as to "why?" The vast majority of Hogs seem to have/use modern cameras that come with a whole lot more Bells-and-Whistles than my trusty Nikon FM did. It sure seems like the vast majority do "some amount" of computer post-processing on their images, so we must admit that they have no fear/distrust of technology. If they/we follow the recommendation of the on-board light meter in setting the camera's controls, then why restrict ourselves to the "stepped" shutter speeds available in our cameras rather than setting the aperture and letting the camera set "what should be" a more accurate stepless shutter speed to get as close as possible to "optimal exposure?"

Digital photography isn't like shooting "unforgiving chromes" was. But every book/article that I have read on the subject still recommends that we get the digital exposure as close as possible to our optimum. And, granted, tweeking expose of images in PP is one of the easiest things one can do in photography today. So I'm sure that there must be a logical reason to shoot "Full Manual." I just was wondering if someone could articulate for me what that/those reason/s might be as opposed to using Aperture Priority where we still set everything ourselves except the proper "stepless" shutter speed that we cannot manually set.

Went to a family birthday party yesterday. Took the 5d MIII and flash. Began shooting and the flash seemed erratic. Missed many"good shots". Checked settings, ... everything seemed OK. After about 2 hours and experiencing the flash still being erratic, I discovered it was not seated completely in the hot shoe. DUH!! DUH!!! DUH!!! OH well, one more learning experience. I'm 81! Is there a time, other than after departing this Earth, I might exhaust my DUH's?
Mark

I've just learned the phrase "ethical optimization." Apparently it means "lying with photography."
A friend is selling her house. Unhappy with the realtor's pictures (too dark), she asked me to try. I gave her three dozen beautiful images and thought I'd done a good job, making the images looks like reality. That was a mistake. Real estate photographers employ the concept of "ethical optimization." Super wide lenses. House looks huge. A normal fridge appears six feet wide. Everything looks bigger than life.
Next time I can match the effect, I think. But what do you think of the idea? If everyone else is making the houses look better than they are, I'm putting someone at a disadvantage by aiming for realism..
Thoughts?