Hey Y'all! Hope you've had a great week. This week I want to talk about Camera Modes in particular the ones that I use. This blog is mainly for newer photographers who question if they are using the correct mode or not. First a little about me. I got my first SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera in the mid 1970's way before the Internet , Cell phones or Instagram. Cameras were made of metal and glass and were heavy and hardly any electronics if any were in them. Maybe a light meter. You learned to shoot in manual. Of course there were no screens on the back of the camera so you had to wait a week or so to get your images back from the drug store. A very hard way to learn. Not like today where we snap a photo and have the results instantaneously
in our hands. I encourage everyone to learn how to shoot their camera in Manual mode like I did. If you know how it works in manual you will know how to correct things when you're shooting in the semi automatic modes and things don't go right. Now some people say that you are not a professional unless you shoot in manual all of  the time. I am not a believer in this. I think you should know how to shoot in manual but I don't think you're any less of a photographer if you use any of the other modes. Here are the modes I shoot in and why.

Aperture Priority Mode. I  use this mode 90% of the time. Why? Because I think that controlling the depth of field is the most important in most of my photography. That is Controlling how much of the photo is in focus. Aperture controls this. I am basically a travel/street/landscape photographer and depth of field is very important to the feel of the shot. Being able to compose and adjust Cherokee
settings quickly is a must. I'm usually walking on a photowalk and being
able to quickly adjust my aperture to get the shot is a must. So I let the camera make the decisions on shutter speed and ISO. I like to be able to isolate the subject of the photo by using the aperture to blur the background by using my aperture . I also like to make as much as I can in focus using aperture when taking a landscape shot. So that is 90% of my photography what about the other 10%?

Shutter Priority Mode. I use Shutter priority about 5% of the time. I use this when the shutter speed is the most important part of  the photograph . If I want to show motion like when something is passing through the frame I can slow it down and it will blur what is moving. Great for light trails of cars or people just walking by to show movement . This can be a great technique to adjust my shutter slow enough that
people walking blur. You usually need a tripod or some sort of support for this to work. Another time I would use it is when I shoot wildlife or sports and I want the shutter speed to be high enough to capture a moving animal or bird. Maybe 1/2000 second to freeze that deer or bear and even higher for birds of flight. Keeping the shutter speed up to eliminate movement. So I will set my shutter speed and let the camera adjust Aperture and ISO.

Manual Mode. I use manual mode 5% of the time. I basically use manual mode when I'm on a tripod. When the shooting is slow I can dial in my settings. Let's say I'm doing a landscape shot of a waterfall and I want to blur the water to make it silky smooth. Or say I'm doing a landscape shot and I want to focus stack the scene I can put my camera in manual and then just adjust my focus and the whole scene stays at the correct exposure and dosen't change. Or maybe when I'm doing long exposure astro photography where the exposure may be in minutes if Im using a star tracker. Basically for me anytime I have the camera on a tripod that means that the shooting is slow and I can be slow with my adjustments.

That is basically the 3 camera modes I use and the percentage of the time I use them. I know people will argue that manual is just as quick as one of the semi automatic modes but I know after almost 50 years of shooting that isn't true. But that's just people and we all do things different. I also use Auto ISO most of the time unless it isn't working quite the way I want. The modern camera is a wonderful tool with many technical advantages far greater than the first SLR I ever owned and the digital sensor is much more forgiving than ISO 100 film was back in the day. So don't be shy in using those Semi Automatic modes on your camera. You paid good money for that camera let it work for you some. LOL So until next week... Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link