It occurs to me, as I write these articles on photography techniques, that I often instruct on what YOU should do. That’s all good and well. I mean…that’s why you’re here, presumably, to learn how YOU can get the most out of your camera.

Occasionally, however, it’s good to know what techniques, equipment, or settings that other photographers use and why.

goal in the trees by Damien Franco

Why I Use Aperture Priority Mode

Truth be told I probably have my camera set to aperture priority mode 95% of the time. In fact, I’m willing to bet, without looking, that my camera is set to it right now, as it’s resting on my bookshelf beside me. *checking* Yep. It is.

Aperture priority mode works for me because, as a contemporary art photographer, I much prefer to control my depth of field by dictating which f-stop to use in any given situation. I want to control how the scene looks to the viewer by controlling what is in focus and what isn’t. This allows me to guide the viewer to the focal point of the image.

I want to depict a scene with shallow depth of field and let the camera dictate what shutter speed is appropriate for the scene.  Sure, sometimes I have to adjust, but that’s part of being a creative photographer.  Sometimes my camera is setting the shutter speed at 1/25th of a second and I have to decide if I need to open up the aperture more or bump up the ISO.

Because I know how my camera makes these decisions I’m able to manipulate the camera starting with one point of the equation triangle (ISO) then adjusting another point for artistic purpose (aperture) while letting my camera tackle that last point in the equation (shutter speed).  It’s part art part science.

It’s what works for me.

I also inherited my father’s impeccably steady hand so hand holding slower shutter speeds doesn’t scare me a bit when I’m without a tripod.

There are times, admittedly, that I’ll use shutter priority or manual mode, but those times have become more and more rare as my needs, as a photographer, have changed.

But REAL photographers use Manual Mode!

There are many photographers out there on the Internet that will scream about how “Only REAL photographers use manual mode and if YOU want to be a REAL photographer you NEED to use manual mode”.

Give me a break!

Learning how to use your camera in full manual mode can most certainly help make you a better photographer by giving you a better understanding of the exposure equation and more. I highly recommend that you, as a person learning photography, try exercises where you tackle the world for one full week with your camera on manual mode. You’ll learn much more about light and shutter speed that way than reading about it on photography blogs.

But that doesn’t mean you have to leave it there! Once you’ve learned why your camera, at ISO 200, in the early morning light, set to f5.6, is asking for a shutter speed of 100 you’ll be able to adjust accordingly. Need more depth but you’re hand holding an 85mm lens? You may need to bump up that ISO to 400 before you set your camera to f8 if you still want a sharp image.

These tools help you tackle various situations in various light and speed settings.

You can’t trust the camera meter!

Yeah, that one’s still floating around a bit as well. Seriously.

Let’s think for a second. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, etc haven’t been working on their sensors and meters continuously over the past decade out of sheer laziness. I mean, why would they? It’s not like they are competing for you dollars?!!

Our modern day cameras have insanely accurate light meters built in. And every model that comes out leapfrogs the previous ones.

I would be insane to spend all of that money on a new camera and not trust the light meter that’s built in.

Is the in-camera light meter always accurate for every given situation? No. You have to learn how and when you should adjust the settings once your camera has read the scene. That’s part of being a creative photographer rather than a someone who simply produces snapshots.

Let that expensive computer with a lens do some of the work it’s designed to do.

But make sure it’s doing what you want when you want. That may require learning how to shoot in manual mode first. But you knew I was gonna say that didn’t you?

So what about YOU?  What modes do you find yourself using most often and why?

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Related posts:

1. How To Measure Light With Your Camera
2. In Camera Light Meter
3. Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO
4. Finding the Right Creative Exposure
5. The Exposure Equation