Do you guys shoot with aperture priority mode very much?

The reason I ask is this: I'm and old film guy, who recently got into digital after many years of not shooting at all. Back in the early 80's, all I had were manual cameras.

Now, I read a lot here (and elsewhere) that says something to the effect of "real photographers only shoot in manual", and I get that. At the same time, I was thinking today that with digital, as easy as it is to tweak the exposure after the fact, why not let the camera get "close enough" to a good exposure via aperture priority shooting and clean it up later if necessary? I'm not thinking about carefully exposed photographs of static images. I'm thinking about situations where either the subject is moving or the light is changing and so rather than constantly fuss with the exposure settings (and maybe miss a shot), let the camera do it.

Just curious how you guys do this...

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In 2011, about 55% of my shots were using aperture priority, 40% were manual, and the rest were shutter priority. That's with the D200; I suspect that the mix with 35mm film is similar. With the Pentax 645n, the percentage of Aperture priority is higher, and large format is all manual.

If you want to photograph a man spinning, give some thought to why he spins. Understanding for a photographer is as important as the equipment he uses. - Margaret Bourke-White

I learned with a Honeywell (Pentax) Spotmatic back in the mid-60s and manual was all you could really do. Over the years I migrated toward some of the auto modes, mostly A Priority. I purchased my D7000 about a year ago and started out mostly shooting A Priority but noticed that my exposures were varying all over the place. So, I started shooting Manual and now Manual accounts for 95% of my exposures.

When you expose film you don't want to waste shots - I worked for Kodak for 27 years and got film for free - but in today's digital age you can expose a lot of images and it doesn't cost you a penny and it helps you really get to know light and your camera. My personal opinion is that Manual is the way to go.

Tom

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What sort of photography do you do, Tom?

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I shoot mostly landscape.

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Jeff,
In shooting film for over 40 years, I first had meterless cameras, then match needle (or led) manual cameras, and often went meterless, and sometimes used the meters. When I was coming up in photography, the prevailing view was the one you shared in your post. "Real Men" went manual!!!

My priority now is making the picture, and most of my shots are grab shots, and I use manual focus lenses, so I shoot mostly in aperture preferred automatic. At times, I enjoy going manual--usually when I'm taking my time making a picture. I would say that about 90% of my pictures are made in Aperture Preferred auto.

I do use mostly spot metering, and use the Zone System most of the time. The spot metering capabilities and exposure lock on my D300 lend themselves wonderfully to these techniques.

James

I think one of the pitfalls of a modern camera is that an emerging photographer often thinks the sophistication of the automation precludes other thinking.

When I bought my first auto body (film) my progression of features started with the amazing "P" mode and matrix metering, then I discovered program-shift and found that with the spin of the dial I could quickly select either the shutter speed or the aperture that I desired for the situation and the camera did the rest.

Later I discovered spot metering and got stuck in a spot-metering mode because that particular camera didn't have a good compensation for back-lighted subjects. It did have a very good auto daylight fill strobe integration and that became my next big capitalization on auto-exposure.

As my awareness of strobe integration improved the move to aperture priority was natural but then often I needed the exposure system to be "more reliable" than the emerging matrix system - hence I adopted again the Nikon classic CW metering.

While my kids were becoming more involved in school activities and sports, "S" mode started creeping into my photographic vocabulary. A stint with aerial photography (pre VR) strengthened my hold on "S".

As my business travel increased and I found that I could nominally reserve one early morning or late evening during a weeks travel for photography I began reverting to manual mode and spot metering for those early/late lighting problems.

With my high-ISO capable D700, I now sometimes control shooting parameters with ISO. Manual mode is still with me. For easy automation, I still prefer aperture preferred auto exposure because I still tend to treat depth of field as a preferred exposure parameter. I still like CW metering for things I consider critical and often dial in my exposure compensation before making a lot of other decisions.

OTOH in difficult and continuous varying lighting that often follows along with tour based travel photography, I like autoISO and aperture preferred exposure. This is mostly with a VR lens and I can often tolerate slower shutter speeds. I shoot in RAW so I can squeeze out or tailor more effectively the dynamic range in the final image.

So for me, aperture priority is in the bag, but it is only one of several aspects of setting and designing what I want for a proper exposure.

BTW, in those difficult travel situations if I'm using my X100, I often use full Auto mode (programmed in X100 talk), autoISO and spot metering with RAW files. I know the camera is fairly strongly biased toward the f/2 aperture its lens and it's a good f/2. The exposure control naturally fits my style and since the results at f/2 are quite acceptable and I'm frequently in poorly lighted museums, historic building, dark streets, evening situations all that works out very well.

Aperture is a tool, if I were shooting military airshows as often as I'd like, I would likely be much more attuned to "S" with the necessary exposure compensation.

Best Regards,
Roger

Yes. I'm A-priority the majority of the time for outdoor photojournalism. Also for sports, because it allows me to be sure I will get the highest possible shutter speed for the lighting conditions, AND the aperture I want (which is often the widest one). Shutter priority, on the other hand, won't necessarily get me the aperture I need. Manual exposure is just too slow sometimes.

Your viewer sees the DOF in your picture. They don't see your shutter speed in most cases, though. Thus, I mostly use aperture priority. I think of it as a smart manual mode. As long as you understand light, and understand how your meter works (which I'm struggling with at the moment on my D200, which is relatively new still) you can use aperture priority effectively and tweak in raw processing without giving up much over manual mode.

When I first started reading this site over a decade ago, I didn't understand why most used aperture priority. But I tried it out, and gave it a chance. I soon found it was very useful.

Now if motion were very important, like for shooting planes, as Roger mentioned, or motorsports, I might use shutter priority to make sure the camera was set without a doubt to the shutter speed I needed. But for regular sports, there is enough leeway that a stop and a half difference in shutter speed isn't going to make a difference in action-stopping ability (as long as my ISO is high enough such that the minimum shutter speed selected by the camera for the f/stop and light, proves sufficient for stopping the motion). Case in point: the other day, I was photgoraphing lacrosse. I started out in shutter priority (just for a change). But I soon found that my aperture was being stopped down too far (thus wasting action-stopping ability). And I wanted a constant DOF. So I switched to my trusty A-mode and all was well again. I didn't care, as long as my shutter speed was at least 1/1250th. If it got over 1/3000th, I would have lowered my ISO, because less than 1/3000th would be a waste of depth of field/ISO.

My breakdown:

Aperture priority probably 60-70% of the time
Manual mode: 30-40%
Shutter priority: 5% at most
Program: never (except when trying it out for fun)

An undeniable paradox: To think that there is any such thing as an absolute rule is at worst naïve, and at best, shortsighted. There is no such thing as an always-true, all context- or situation-salient, absolute rule that always holds true…including this one!

Hi!

I am mostly a landscape/architectural hobby photographer. And that, to me, means A mode to control DoF. Actually, even when shooting my 6-year-old twins, I tend to favour A, just to blur the background and make them "pop". And I did set the second dial to change exposure, which means I can fairly quickly adapt to light conditions.

I turn to S when shooting anything "animated", whether it's birds in flight or airplanes. And sometimes running water as well.

Finally, I reserve the last two modes to special situations: M is usually for dark hours and/or long exposures, especially with ND filters mounted. And P is for casual indoor flash photography, when the camera goes from hand to hand...

I have never bothered to measure the breakdown into these different categories, but I'd say it's about 85 to 90% A for me! And that goes back to the F100 I got a bit over 10 years ago, then D70, D200, D300 and D700 (and I still own the latter two), and even on my compact cameras, a Cpx 5400, a P50 and now a Panasonic LX3: the control of the aperture will not as easily result in nice bokeh given the small surface of the sensor and the high pixel count, but at least I can prevent the camera from stopping down to f/8, and thus limit diffraction, which is something I have really seen happening with the LX3!

Come to think of it, when I was shooting an Olympus OM-1, I tended to use it a bit like in A mode: I set the aperture first and then adapted the shutterspeed! And it's the same now when I dust my Nikkormat. And I like the FA because it had A mode...

Olivier Rychner
__________________________________________
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I use aperture priority most of the time - plus expo correction, if I am not happy with the suggested shutter speed (and have time). With one finger I change the aperture (and the camera adjusts the shutter speed for me) - with another finger I CAN correct the suggested shutter speed. In manual mode I have to do nearly the same, less the conveniense of starting shutter speed correction from a reasonably pre-set value.

Vladimir
Russian Nikonian in Switzerland

> I read a lot here (and elsewhere)... "real photographers only shoot in manual", and I get that.

I don't agree. Real photographers don't care about how things get done, they care THAT they get done. Does it really matter how we arranged at 1/125th, f/4.5, ISO 200? To a first order, manual exposure, manual exposure with meter, aperture priority, and shutter priority all give the same result. If the argument is that the meter isn't really right (and it isn't right in a fair number of circumstances), it simply means that the photographer has to know what's going on.

> easy as it is to tweak the exposure after the fact

It is, but it wasn't so hard to tweak the exposure after the fact ("in the lab") in film days, either. Except, I guess, for Kodachrome. Anything else you could (have) pushed or pulled as necessary.

> why not let the camera get "close enough" to a good exposure

You can, but manual or auto, you still need to get the exposure right. Close enough may or may not be good enough, manual or auto. Get it right in the camera and you have a lot less work to do later, whether that's with Lightroom or with Microdol-X.

> Just curious how you guys do this...

I generally shoot in aperture preferred if I'm shooting landscape or macro. I generally shoot shutter preferred if I'm shooting sports. I make fairly extensive the exposure compensation button in any auto mode, even before taking a look at a histogram. For night sports I often shoot in full manual, to avoid rapid changes from shot to shoot. I nearly always shoot people events indoors with the camera on full manual and the flash on TTL. For situations involving headlights, such as railroads at night, or endurance sports cars at almost any hour of the day, I normally shoot in manual mode to avoid getting fooled by drastic changes in headlight direction.

For anything else (say, travel, portraits, etc), I probably just use aperture preferred unless there's a huge amount of contrast, and then I probably revert to manual and spot metering, using a form of the Zone System.

Probably a Real Photographer (tm) would avoid using a meter in the first place...

And no, I'm not a digital newbie. I learned photography on an Exakta VXIIb, a Nikkormat and a Besseler 23C in the early 70s.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

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Well I used to be also an "old film guy"...
And I'm not ashamed to say that I do sometimes use the the "P" program (ducks from the flying tomatoes)

Most times however I'm in Aperture program with Auto Iso for minimum speed (depending of lenses and situations)!
At dark or with flash, I revert to Manual as I feel I can control it better. Some days, I go for full manual (ISO too), for the pleasure of it

I tend to use mostly the Multi zone metering and revert to spot in some really hard cases only !!!
I agree with Brian in nailing the good exposure in the first place, specially at higher ISOs, it does end with less work in PP...

Jacques

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I use aperture priority at least 90% of the time. Manual priority the rest of the time; shutter priority rarely. I only use shutter priority if I need a precise shutter speed because of motion (to induce or freeze). I rarely use manual simply because I almost always set the aperture first. For me manual is essentially equivalent to aperture priority. As long as you know the relationship between aperture (and depth of field), shutter speed (and motion), and ISO, who cares what shooting mode is used?

Garrett

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I control the variables I want to control like ISO (noise) and aperture (depth of field) and monitor the shutter speed to make sure it is in the range I want.

What is the difference between reading the meter to set manual exposure vs setting either shutter or aperture? Let's assume you set ISO; no auto ISO. If you set exposure manually you have to choose a preferred blur (shutter speed) or depth of field (aperture). The last variable is determined based on the meter's suggestion and the amount you want to over or underexpose based on your understanding of the meter's guess vs your desired effect.

Whew! In the end, you have to understand your camera's metering system. I have a reasonable feel for when the camera is going to get it 'wrong'.

Is it 'manual exposure' if I get my exposure from an area that I know will get it right, lock exposure, recompose, and shoot? If Yes, then the next statement is a bit off.

I shoot almost everything in aperture priority. If the situation is static I'll dial in compensation. In those cases I know the variation between my vision and the camera's guess at metering. For example I often dial in exposure compensation for snow fields, sand beaches, certain night time shooting, and my artistic vision of high or low key. The D100 was a bit off on snow, the D3S does a heck of a lot better.

Manual mode is used where the lighting changes as Brian described with headlights that move and cause the camera to go wild. I go straight to manual at that point and get the photo I want.

Manual is also my method of choice when I want to play with the mood and I start shooting over and under exposed, exposed for one item in the shot . . . . Let's face it, a lot of times at this point I'm guessing and trying to figure out what I want.

I shoot sports and journalism stuff recently. I used aperture for landscapes too because I'm most concerned with depth of field.

Manual is required for use of tilt and shift on the PC-E lenses. I love those lenses. Yes they are slow but manual everything changes the photographic session.

To directly answer your questions.
"real photographers only shoot in manual" Bull stuff! Real photographers control their cameras and make it take the photo the photographer sees.

Yes, with digital you can tweak. Just like film you can push, pull, dodge, burn, etc. Just like film the further you are off in camera the more labor later and the more risk you'll see grain (noise) or bad color, or simply not have the information at all.

Yes, I generally just let the camera do its thing and tweak later as required. BUT / HOWEVER . . . I do it as an educated choice. I let it choose anything I want it to choose. See exposure compensation, metering to the side and recomposing, controlling depth of field, and all that above.

Daniel McGowan
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I can't believe after all this time, there is still resistance to automatic exposure metering by people who believe that we are somehow relinquishing control and creative vision in doing so, or that it's a lazy man's approach. These same people think that computerization of the camera interface is just high-tech electronic junk, and that DSLRs are "plastic ####" (somehow these people fail to realize that a lot of DSLRs are magnesium alloy).

An undeniable paradox: To think that there is any such thing as an absolute rule is at worst naïve, and at best, shortsighted. There is no such thing as an always-true, all context- or situation-salient, absolute rule that always holds true…including this one!

Al,
You must remember that some of some of us >50 were influenced and trained by people who thought photographers should read the light, guess exposure, and bracket. Meters, especially meters IN cameras were anathema to many of them.

I have broken out of that box, and am an enlightened technology enthusiast (though I still only use MF lenses, and still despise plastic cameras!)

Magnesium is just fine

James

>Al,
>You must remember that some of some of us >50 were
>influenced and trained by people who thought photographers
>should read the light, guess exposure, and bracket. Meters,
>especially meters IN cameras were anathema to many of them.
>
>I have broken out of that box, and am an enlightened
>technology enthusiast (though I still only use MF lenses, and
>still despise plastic cameras!)
>
>Magnesium is just fine

I was born a few years before the beginning of the AF revolution. By the time I was 11 (when I started photography), AF was no longer a luxury. The first SLR camera I used was manual focus, but nonetheless, it had both shutter priority and a program mode. I started out using shutter priority, but eventually gravitated to manual mode. Three years later, I got my first Nikon, an N90s...an amazing camera for a freshman in high school. But I was dedicated, even at that point in time, so it was not at all too much camera for a 14-year-old. The thing was, due to the built-in motor drive, I really started to grab shots quickly (that was the beginning of my love for PJ and sports photography). I finally had a camera that could react as quickly as I could and nail the shots almost every time. So it was natural to start using aperture priority in order to save precious time setting the exposure. I was still mostly shooting print film, so it was good enough. Of course, the more I shot slide film, the more I reverted back to manual mode again. But then when I got a digital SLR, the D1H, in 2005, I went back to shooting in aperture priority. I found I could now simply change the ISO if I had to. I started doing more and more PJ and sports, and as of 7 years later, I'm so ingrained into using aperture priority for documentary photography, because of the time savings. Using spot metering for every single frame means I can easily lose shots. Like the lacrosse game the other day. I don't think I could have done what I did without aperture priority and AF. I would have had far fewer in-focus and correctly-exposed frames. Why would I want to handicap myself when the technology is there at my fingertips and can free me from having to mess with focus and exposure before every single frame? Before I know it, the ball and player woud be gone, the moment would be gone.

An undeniable paradox: To think that there is any such thing as an absolute rule is at worst naïve, and at best, shortsighted. There is no such thing as an always-true, all context- or situation-salient, absolute rule that always holds true…including this one!

>Why would I
>want to handicap myself when the technology is there at my
>fingertips and can free me from having to mess with focus and
>exposure before every single frame? Before I know it, the ball
>and player woud be gone, the moment would be gone.

Exactly! Automat cannot be more intelligent than man - but can be faster. Actually, automats are designed by humans to be faster - so, how the fact, that automats are faster, can insult a man? Only a newbe, who is not certain, that others trust he CAN set the proper exposure and focus manually...

Vladimir
Russian Nikonian in Switzerland

Some of us old dinosaurs got pretty good at presetting exposure for the situation, and prefocusing. It's amazing what could be done with manual focus. Growing up focusing forced us to learn to focus fast! I never missed many shots I wanted.

If I were doing sports photography and reporting for a newspaper like I did in the 70's, I would probably invest in autofocus, and use matrix metering more than I do now. I have nothing against technology, but I like it in small doses.

James

Well, with my dad's Exacta there was no choice -- manual with a hand-held meter -- Kodachrome 10 -- you had to get "exact"!

I went through cameras with S and A priority, but preferred S back then.

Now with my D90, my camera sits in "P" mode so when I pick it up I can shoot in a hurry if I have to.

For landscape I use "A" to get the deep DOF I want (on a tripod I don't worry much about the shutter speed).
For family shooting I use "P".
For dim-lit no-flash situations (in our Church) I use "P" or "A".

So its interesting that having used mostly "S" in the days of automatic film cameras, I now seldom use it it all.

----
Dennis Smith.

The reply from ZoneV is pretty much my view as well.

>At the same time, I was thinking
>today that with digital, as easy as it is to tweak the
>exposure after the fact, why not let the camera get
>"close enough" to a good exposure via aperture
>priority shooting and clean it up later if necessary?

Yes, you can expect to adjust exposure perhaps +/- 1 EV but this wouldn't work for a reasonably large minority of my images:

- you can't clean up subject movement blur (or create it if you want it)
- there is very little latitude for exposure corrections in post in images that were at high ISO and therefore noisy
- the dynamic range of real scenes and of our eyes still far exceeds that of the camera sensors. That means loss of details in shadows and highlights if one isn't careful about getting the right exposure in-camera.
- shots that are correctly exposed in-camera often have a certain richness in their tones and colours and that decreases when exposure and tone curves are adjusted.

Peter

>Yes, you can expect to adjust exposure perhaps +/- 1 EV but
>this wouldn't work for a reasonably large minority of my
>images:

I'm ALWAYS making 1/2 stop adjustments to levels in photoshop. But I don't consider it a bad thing; it's a tradeoff of using aperture priority that I'm willing to have to put up with.

>- you can't clean up subject movement blur (or create it if
>you want it)

No, you can't. If blur is important, shutter priority would be a better choice. But here's the thing. If I'm going to set the shutter speed manually, chances are I still also want to set the aperture manually. That's why I almost never use shutter priority...DOF is too important to waste.

>- there is very little latitude for exposure corrections in
>post in images that were at high ISO and therefore noisy

I've never really had good results with aperture priority at night. This is another condition when I just go into manual mode.

>- the dynamic range of real scenes and of our eyes still far
>exceeds that of the camera sensors. That means loss of
>details in shadows and highlights if one isn't careful about
>getting the right exposure in-camera.

I find that the matrix meter on the D1X/H does a great job of balancing shadows and highlights in most cases for a sunny day. If I'm concerned, I use raw if it's an option for the situation.

>- shots that are correctly exposed in-camera often have a
>certain richness in their tones and colours and that decreases
>when exposure and tone curves are adjusted.

Maybe with drastic adjustments, but I find that I can live with the image quality that results from making minor adjustments.

An undeniable paradox: To think that there is any such thing as an absolute rule is at worst naïve, and at best, shortsighted. There is no such thing as an always-true, all context- or situation-salient, absolute rule that always holds true…including this one!

I'm happy to admit I use all the settings on the Shooting Mode Dial (PASM). M(anual) is the least used. I'm either shooting static objects where I care more about DoF, Moving/Action where I care more about freezing subject movement, or flash candids. M(anual) is neat, but not particularly efficient for me. I have very limited time for personal photography at this stage in my life, so every moment I can get, I want to be focused on other things like getting other aspects of the shot optimized and not agonizing over my settings.

To be honest, the choice of shooting mode is less critical than the decisions made on metering. So you could make the arguement that only *real photographers* use *spot-meter* and everyone else is just a pretender. As the new generation short-hands, J/K (just kidding).

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I've been changing. I used to be aperture priority 99% of the time in all situations. But now when I work with models and people I use manual most of the time. So I'd say 70% of the time I'm in aperture priority and 30% in manual. And manual is increasing as I start looking for specific looks. But I still use aperture priority a lot when I don't need or want to think about it.

>I've been changing. I used to be aperture priority 99% of the
>time in all situations. But now when I work with models and
>people I use manual most of the time. So I'd say 70% of the
>time I'm in aperture priority and 30% in manual. And manual is
>increasing as I start looking for specific looks. But I still
>use aperture priority a lot when I don't need or want to think
>about it.

That's certainly the key for me.

If its a static subject with fixed lighting, the manual works just fine.

But if there is a lot of action or motion or the sun is constantly shifting behind clouds, etc, then aperture priority seems to give a good result.

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I use Aperture Priority for most of my Aurora shoots.

Works well even with fast moving lights. You may need to change the ISO or the EV sometimes.

Mike in Alaska

Visit Fortymile Photo

>Do you shoot with aperture priority mode very much?
I use Aperture Priority for the majority of my shots.


>
>I'm and old film guy, who recently
>got into digital after many years of not shooting at all. Back
>in the early 80's, all I had were manual cameras.

My Nikon FE bought around 1980 had great aperture priority automatic exposure, but it was very easy to just turn the aperture ring and match needles in manual mode or judge how much compensation to give it - I think easier than in my D200 or D7000. BUT I paid the extra over the FM to get the automatic exposure, which still works well.


>
>the effect of "real photographers only shoot in
>manual", and I get that.

I don't get that at all. This is the kind of thing often said by people trying to justify not modernising.
"real photographers" need a good understanding of exposure and full command of their equipment in order to achieve the results they desire. Whether the equipment is just manual or automatic enabled is not important - it's about making the best of what you've got, and quite honestly, I think that often automatic is at least as good as manual.
There is a delight in spending time to fiddle around with the controls in manual mode, changing metering type etc, but for me and most people who buy the sophisticated automatic exposure equipped computerised cameras of the last 30 years, life is too short - otherwise we would all be still using the FM or plate cameras with hand held meters - there is a place for all this, but to be a real photographer you don't have to leave the latest technology inactive.



At the same time, I was thinking
>today that with digital, as easy as it is to tweak the
>exposure after the fact, why not let the camera get
>"close enough" to a good exposure via aperture
>priority shooting and clean it up later if necessary? I'm not
>thinking about carefully exposed photographs of static images.

Even the best exposed shots can sometimes benefit from a bit of post camera processing - be it in the dark room or the computer, and I think that it is often a matter of judgement and interpretation as to what constitutes the perfect exposure - one person's perfect manual exposure might be someone else's overexposure, another persons automatic underexposure might be someone elses view of perfection.


>I'm thinking about situations where either the subject is
>moving or the light is changing and so rather than constantly
>fuss with the exposure settings (and maybe miss a shot), let
>the camera do it.

It's a mistake to think that the automatic power of the modern camera, so capable of dealing with all these difficult situations should not be let loose on simple ones in automatic modes.

>

>Just curious how you guys do this...

I try to avail myself of as much of the technological armoury in my camera that I have learned how to command as appropriate for the subject and situation, including available time - and sometimes that means using manual, Programme and even the scene modes too. I'm no more ashamed to use these easy modes than I'm ashamed to use the automatic gear change in my car.

David.

Cardiff,Britain.

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I think that when the only choice was manual exposure without a built-in meter, people didn't really meter much anyway in situations like sports photography. I bet most simply guessed the exposure more often than not, relying in part on sunny 16 or experience. But with aperture (or shutter) priority, we can now often get closer to optimal exosure than we would have gotten with guessing...much closer. And if you don't like the way the autoexposure is behaving, you can just throw in a compensation.

An undeniable paradox: To think that there is any such thing as an absolute rule is at worst naïve, and at best, shortsighted. There is no such thing as an always-true, all context- or situation-salient, absolute rule that always holds true…including this one!

Personally, I like to shoot Aperture Priority about 85%, Program 10% and Shutter and Manual the remaining 5%.

I like Aperture Priority to control the depth of field; checking the shutter speed for hand hold ability and adjusting from there. I use program, typically at family functions, with flash, so I can hand off the camera to family/friends to take pics - without having to explain everything to them. Shutter and Manual, I use when I want full control over everything. As it is, I plan on shooting more in Manual mode, more to practice my technique than anything else. I tend to like my results with Aperture Priority.

Just as important, I think is metering mode, while I fully trust the metering in my F100, I'm still coming to grips with the D700, I like it a lot in Matrix, I am still trying to get better results with Spot Metering, I rarely use CW, though...not sure why.

Anthony

The Moderator Page and My Gallery
The important things in life are simple; the simple things are hard.

Being of the old school myself, I always start in aperture first then when i know the light switch to manual

I am also a film era child - a very grown up child
And that experience gave me the great fun challenge to guess exposure, experience with shutter speeds, etc. I had a wet lab then at home. and spent countless hours printing, dodging, burning, etc.

But now, I like to get my digital images as close as I want them at the camera/card.
I have very little time for post-processing and therefore little patience to tweak afterwards.

Following my film experience and enjoying the high ISO capabilities of today, when I am doing portraits (especially when with my 85mm f/1.4D AF) I am almost always shooting in Aperture priority (at f/1.4 to f/2.5 mostly), metering at Center-Weighted.

The must-have (or 'cant-miss') portraits at events I mostly do on P (Program), as professional PJs do under the same circumstances; more so if with flash.
Like you said, "let the camera do it", because there is no way I can perform calculations faster and better than the camera; more so when there is only one chance for that shot.

When doing landscapes, then I mostly shot in Manual, as I often like to underexpose for a Velvia slides look and shadows detail, even when having an ad-hoc Picture Control for it.
The equivalent would be to shoot in Aperture Priority and bracket. I find Manual more efficient for my purposes.

Sports: Shutter speed priority, whether I want to pan following the movement or freeze the action or something in between.

How much of each?

Portraits: A 75%, P 25%

Landscapes: M 100%

Sports: S 90%, P 10%

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JRP (Founder & Administrator. Nikonian at the north-eastern Mexican desert) Gallery, Brief Love Story, The Team
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I use Aperture priority 90% of the time - maybe more. With matrix metering it is remarkably accurate. I do use exposure compensation on 50-60% of my images, but it is usually just a fraction of a stop. The most common reason for exposure compensation is to prevent blown highlights.

I use Shutter Priority for a very small percentage of images. Typically it is used for Bulb images where I cannot use Aperture priority.

I use Manual more than you would think - about 8-10% of my images. There are two scenarios. If the lighting on the subject varies and I want a constant shutter speed and DOF, I use auto ISO to balance the exposure. This is perfect when the subject moves in and out of shadows.

The second scenario for Manual is when the light on the subject is constant but the background changes. This throws off matrix metering or even center weighted metering. Rather than fight it, I just meter the subject and check the histogram. As long as the lighting does not change, the background has no impact on the exposure. This is very common for birds in flight - in fact I use this setup for 700 frames yesterday with backgrounds that varied from light sand to surf and waves, and to dark blue water.

I need to add that I have about 20 images a month with a random setting. Mode control wheel on the D7000 moves too freely and allows the mode to change. That is driving me crazy since it is not something you notice when actively shooting. I've got 100,0000 images with other cameras and have never had that issue. It's a frequent issue with the D7000.

Eric Bowles
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Hi!

>I need to add that I have about 20 images a month with a
>random setting. Mode control wheel on the D7000 moves too
>freely and allows the mode to change. That is driving me
>crazy

As an aside, that is a wonderful plaidoyer for a new pro or semi-pro DX camera with the mode selection of the D300!

Olivier Rychner