Programmed Mode

One more question.

Hopefully someone who has been to Africa and shot a lot of digital images can offer an insight.

Call it ego or just the old film shooter in me, but on my D700's I NEVER use 'programmed mode" - either aperture or shutter priority and then set from there. It makes me think about each shot and most of the time, the thought process is VERY fast since I have shot film for a long time (ok, I am 67 and went digital last year).

Based on experience, do you think I should consider programmed (snapshot) mode?

Just curious from people who have done digital a lot longer than I have.

I never use P mode as I want to make the decisions not the camera.
The modes I use are A, S and M.

--
Geoff
Gold Coast, Australia
http://www.alldigi.com

Never been to Africa, but my preference is to use M for almost everything. The only reason I would use A, S, or P is when the light is changing rapidly, and I don't have time to look at the exposure. All three are non-thinking modes to me.

I don't really see the advantage to using A or S if you want to have some input on the exposure beyond what the meter says. Using M and adjusting the aperture wheel or shutter wheel seems easier to me that dialing in EV+- when you need to adjust exposure.

If you are going to trust the meter, then whether you use A, S, or P depends on what is most important: aperture, speed, or a balance between the two. It would vary with circumstances.
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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html

Hi,

When I tutor my students, I tell them that "program" is idiot mode and "auto" is moron mode ;-)

Seriously, there is always a time and a place for the different settings but, IMHO, they are far and few between. I use aperture priority, manual, and shutter priority in that order.

--

There is a big difference between a photographer and someone who clicks a shutter. One learns his craft and the other looks for a quick fix.

Disclaimer: the comments and views are mine and mine alone, if you do not agree that's okay.

I'm assuming that you are asking about this in reference to Africa because you

don't want to be left fiddling with your manual settings when the lions and tigers
make a surprise appearance?

This is the type of situation when I'd use auto ISO. I still use aperture priority as usual but with auto ISO you can preset the min shutter speed to be used and you probably also know the aperture you want to use for your style of image, so then
you can let auto ISO take care of any fast changing light conditions.

It will always select the lowest ISO it can to suit the other parameters you've set and the D700 will still give you excellent quality when it needs to use higher ISO settings. So your chances of getting the shot at the right aperture and decent shutter speed are vastly improved.

Shooting in program mode to try and assure yourself of getting the shot forces you to compromise on what you'd ideally want the settings to be.

(Plus you don't want your camera buddies to see that you used Program mode when they spy the EXIF info on your favorite wildlife shot).
Have a good trip.
--
Michael Sherman
http://www.msphoto.ca

You should no by now that P stands for "Professional Mode"

"KnoW" by now! ;-)

Sorry could not resist.. Seriously had a lady tell me this has she shot my boys rec team some years back.

Needless to say I shoot all the local recs now. Personally I avoid auto anything, but when shooting on the fly Aperture priority keeps the most consistent and we all want consistency or should.
--
Paul R.
http://dxphotography.com

I use all the modes on my D3s and D300. Each has its place as far as I am concerned. If I am just being a tourist, walking around I often use the Program mode. It is great for those spur of the moment shots and does quite well. I know many will say no way, but for me, it works.

jcad70 said:

I use all the modes on my D3s and D300. Each has its place as far as I am concerned. If I am just being a tourist, walking around I often use the Program mode. It is great for those spur of the moment shots and does quite well. I know many will say no way, but for me, it works.

Click to expand...

I agree completely. We (rhetorical "we") are often more purist than we should be and don't want to admit we do something like shoot in P and let the camera do the thinking. When I have time to "fiddle" and need a perfect exposure, M is the only way to go, but on the fly, like shooting kids being kids, I'll often resort to P just for the speed. It works very well and I don't mind my friends knowing I do it!
--
Joel

There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.
Ernst Haas

Africa is one of the few places I have never been to, :-( - I hope you have a great trip.

When I am going on a specific shoot, I will use A, S or M modes as circumstances require. When I have my camera with me either in the car or when walking around I use the P mode and auto ISO as well, cant be beat for unexpected grab shots.
As the Brits say, horses for courses.

BTW: Nice to meet someone else born in 1943!
--
Conrad
---------------------------------------------------
Show Low, Arizona

The only time I use program mode is when I'm shooting in a widely varying environment where I may need to change either aperture or shutter and may need to do so quickly. And, when using program mode, you can still apply thought to each photo and dial in the appropriate aperture OR shutter speed for the photo. In fact, program mode gives you MORE freedom to dial in what you want than either aperture priority or shutter priority if you take the time to do so. The advantage of program mode is that if action is happening quickly and you don't have time to individually tweak each shot, the camera will pick an exposure that will work, even if the exposure situation changed a lot from the last moment when you tweaked the settings.

The most common circumstance where I run into the need for program mode is when shooting a venue that has both bright sun and full shade and there's a lot happening and I may need to go immediately from full sun to full shade. This type of venue also inevitably leads me to also use fill flash (which limits my shutter speed to 1/250 - further restricting the options).

In this kind of venue, I go with program mode. If I have time before a shot, I can make sure I've got the ideal aperture/shutter speed combination. If I don't have time, the camera will still pick something that works. I've lost no control, but gained an important backstop when there isn't time.

I think it's important for people to realize that program mode can be used with just as much thought and planning as aperture priority and shutter priority - you can adjust either dial to get what you want. Program mode is only a fully automatic mode when you don't touch either dial and choose to let it do all the work.
--
John
Gallery: http://jfriend.smugmug.com
Popular: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/popular
Portfolio: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/portfolio

I understand what you're saying, but I still think that Program mode has very little use for anyone, even a neophyte. While you can change the aperture or shutter speed while in Program mode, you can change them in Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority mode, too. I have never seen an advantage to Program mode over the other auto exposure modes, since they will give the same exposure. For my shooting, the only auto exposure mode I use is Aperture Priority. Deciding which aperture to use is more important to me when shooting landscapes than the shutter speed. I don't want the Program mode making a decision that I have to override if it's not what I want. I can see that a sports, wildlife, or other action photographer might prefer Shutter Priority, but even when I have a need for some minimum shutter speed, I can do that by setting a fast aperture to get the maximum shutter speed. My ideal camera would just have manual and aperture priority exposure modes. I use manual with the spot meter for most of my photography, and aperture priority with matrix metering when I need to work fast.

kevingm said:

I understand what you're saying, but I still think that Program mode has very little use for anyone, even a neophyte. While you can change the aperture or shutter speed while in Program mode, you can change them in Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority mode, too. I have never seen an advantage to Program mode over the other auto exposure modes, since they will give the same exposure. For my shooting, the only auto exposure mode I use is Aperture Priority. Deciding which aperture to use is more important to me when shooting landscapes than the shutter speed. I don't want the Program mode making a decision that I have to override if it's not what I want. I can see that a sports, wildlife, or other action photographer might prefer Shutter Priority, but even when I have a need for some minimum shutter speed, I can do that by setting a fast aperture to get the maximum shutter speed. My ideal camera would just have manual and aperture priority exposure modes. I use manual with the spot meter for most of my photography, and aperture priority with matrix metering when I need to work fast.

Click to expand...

I'm not trying to convince you that you should use program mode for your types of shooting, but it sounds like you completely ignored the scenario I described and just waived it off as nothing. I'd like to see you try to use aperture priority in the conditions I described above - rapidly changing action in both full sun and full shade and using fill flash. The range from bright to dark is just too much with the limitation of 1/250 shutter speed for aperture priority to be the only way you do things. It just doesn't work. In fact, as soon as you go into full sun at f/4, you'll be overexposed at 1/250th. If you're willing to manually tweak every single photo and you have the time to do so, sure you can do that in A mode, but if you're tracking some developing action from full sun to full shade, A mode won't do it without adjusting the exposure in the middle of the sequence. In this case, P mode will give you just as much control (if you choose to exercise it), but also won't miss the exposure of a shot if you don't have time to tweak it. That's my point.

For the record, I use aperture priority myself about 80% of the time, shutter priority about 15% of the time and program mode about 5% of the time. And, I regularly use auto ISO with either A or S modes when shooting sports because it automatically gives me the lowest ISO needed for a proper exposure at my desired aperture and shutter speed.
--
John
Gallery: http://jfriend.smugmug.com
Popular: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/popular
Portfolio: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/portfolio

Sorry, I should have made it clearer that I was responding to the first scenario that you described, in which you said you could vary either the aperture or shutter speed while in Program mode. I was just saying that you can also vary both in either Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority mode. I still don't see an advantage to using Program mode if you're going to be changing the exposure settings from the program choice. It just bugs me to let the camera decide on the aperture, when that has so much to do with what the photo looks like. Even if I can change the program choice, I'd rather start with my choice and vary it if needed. But that's just my preference.

The use of fill flash in your second example does sound like a good reason to use use Program Mode. I'll plead guilty to ignoring your point there. I don't use flash a lot, and when I do, it's slow sync flash at slower shutter speeds.