Frequently Asked Question: What mode do you shoot in most often? A friend told me no pros shoot in Program mode.
I never use Program mode for one simple reason. As sophisticated as our modern DSLRs are, they can’t read my mind. When you put your camera on P, you’re hoping that it will know what you want your photograph to look like.
For folks who just want a well-exposed image, Program mode usually provides a pretty good chance of getting that. That’s why it’s there, to do most of the work so you don’t have to.
But if you want to make a photograph, rather than take a photograph, to borrow a phrase from Ansel Adams, you are better off using something much more sophisticated than your DSLR’s processor and software. Your brain, when in possession of a basic understanding of photography, is much more powerful.
YOU know what type of image you want, or at least, I hope you do, because this is the first step to success with photography. You have little chance to hit a target unless you know what you’re aiming at. So starting off with a clear idea of what type of image you want is crucial.
Though I do sometimes enjoy happy accidents, I always have a specific idea of what type of image I’m trying to accomplish, a mental picture of what I want the digital picture to look like. I then use whatever camera mode and settings will best help me hit that target.
Whenever possible I shoot in Manual mode. I do this for several reasons. One is that it helps me keep my target image in mind. Sometimes I fall into the trap of letting the camera software do too much of the work for me. My mind wanders, I lose track of my target image, and then next thing I know I’ve wasted several minutes shooting images I’m just going to throw away.
Another reason is that my experience and what I see through the viewfinder allow me to make better decisions about exposure than the camera can. I may want the camera to use settings that its software would interpret as over exposing or under exposing because of how it’s programmed to see the world. But of course the camera doesn’t really see the world, it’s just doing math based on brightness values it detects through the lens. Yes, it’s quite clever about doing that math, but its equations aren’t always going to get the results I want. Sometimes I want 2 plus 2 to equal 4, but in very tricky light situations, maybe I want 2 plus 2 to equal AWESOME instead of 4.
I also like Manual mode because it forces me constantly to think about the light. I almost always work outside, and if there are clouds in the sky the light is often changing. Shutter and aperture and ISO settings that might give me the image I want one minute can be significantly too dark or too light the next if the sunlight is affected by cloud movement. When I’m in Manual mode I really have to pay attention to this, which, again, helps me concentrate on my target image.
When I don’t have time to monitor manual settings closely, such as when quickly moving objects are moving through light that changes drastically, I use either Aperture or Shutter priority, depending on which is more important for the type of image I want. For control over depth of field I use Aperture Priority, and for control over the amount of motion blur (none, a bit, or lots) I use Shutter Priority.
For example, when I’m in pit lane and photographing the riders as they move from the inside of the box into pit lane on a sunny day, I’ll often switch to Aperture mode to control the depth of field in my image as the main creative element.
In this example, I wanted Casey to be in sharp focus, and for that focus to grow soft right away in order to make him stand out. If everything in the image were in focus, he would get lost in it. If I were just shooting in pit lane with fairly even light, I could do it in Manual mode. But with him riding out of the dark garage into the light, it was useful not to have to worry about quickly spinning a dial to make changes to the shutter speed while I also concentrated on a moving subject.
But I may shoot the same situation of a rider leaving the box and want, instead of an image with shallow depth of field, an image with lots of blur to show the movement of the bike and rider. The image below used a shutter speed of 1/40 of a second to add lots of motion blur. At f/11 there would have been lots of depth of field and the people in the background would also be in focus at a faster shutter speed. But at 1/40 they are just a wash of color.
As with the first example, here I was able to choose shutter speed as the defining element of exposure and then concentrate on aiming the camera at the subject and let the software adjust the aperture as the subject moved into brighter light.
Most cameras have Presets that are intended help the camera make better guesses about what you want your image to look like. Portrait Mode will make a large aperture the priority, Landscape mode just the opposite. (Now I’m guessing, as I’ve not actually used these.) But again, even the amazing computer in your camera is no match for your own brain, because with some experience you can see subtleties in the situation you’re photographing that the camera cannot.
If you’re intimidated by venturing away from Program mode, a great place to start taking your photography to the next level is by experimenting with Exposure Compensation. Most cameras have an easy way to tell the software that you want your exposure to be a bit brighter or a bit darker than what the camera thinks is going to be ‘right.’ A good opportunity to try Exposure Compensation is an instance of great contrast between the brightest areas of the image and the darkest.
Say Grandpa Jake is standing in front of a bright window. Your camera on P will look at the brightness of the entire scene, be fooled by the light coming in from the window, and give you a shot where the person in front of the window is much too dark. “Yay,” your camera says, “another perfect exposure! I can do this all day.” Well, the math works out, because if you add up all the lightness values in the image they will equal a nice, neutral gray. 2 + 2 is equaling 4, but 4 is not equaling Awesome. But if you use Exposure Compensation to tell the camera to make the entire image brighter than it would without your input, the subject will also be brighter, and after a few tries with different EC settings, you should be able to come up with a much better image. Now that you can actually see Grandpa Jake in the image, you just need to get him to smile.
Once you get the hang of this, trying Manual mode should make sense and be less intimidating because you’re doing the same basic thing. You’re using your own perception of the scene to anticipate which camera settings will be needed to get the image to look like you want. But instead of using EC to make an image brighter or darker, and relying on the camera software to decide exactly HOW to accomplish that, you decide which setting to change to get the desired effect. If you want a brighter image as in the above example, you can do it one of three ways, or a combination of any of those three.
You can use a slower shutter speed to let more light in. You can use a larger aperture. You can increase the ISO setting to make the camera more sensitive to whatever light is coming in during exposure. Each of these choices affects the image is a specific way. Slower shutter speed means you have to hold the camera steady and Grandpa Jake should stay still or there will be blur. Larger aperture will mean less depth of field, so you’d better make sure you lock focus on his eyes. Higher ISO means more noise in the image, which may be undesirable.
Photography is a zero-sum game and each change you make is going to affect some aspect of the equation. But the point is to make those changes with a desired effect in mind, as an attempt to hit the target of your desired image, rather than giving up that opportunity by asking your camera to do the math for you.
By the way, Exposure Compensation will also work when shooting in Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority, and when using these modes I rely heavily on EC. Sometimes depth of field is the most important element of the image I want to make, but I know the camera is going to under expose the scene I’m looking at, so I just bump up the EC a third or two thirds of a stop and forget about that for the moment. I can concentrate on the action and getting the subject in focus, knowing that the aperture is set where I want it and letting the software take care of increasing the exposure via shutter speed for me.
When I’m working with a camera I’m always making such decisions, and those decisions account for much of what makes my images look as they do. Putting the lead riders into sharp focus in the image below was a conscious choice I made in order to tell the story I wanted to tell. In this crazy race, Hector Barber led into the first corner! Another photographer might’ve chosen to tell the story of the riders starting from pit lane, and either focussed on them with a small aperture to blur the front of the pack, or chosen a small aperture to put as many bikes in focus as possible. (Technically speaking, this would’ve been challenging given the low light at this moment.) But given the possibilities, this was the image I wanted because it communicated what I wanted to show about this moment. I then selected the camera settings required to get that image.
In summary, escaping Program mode is much more likely to improve your images than hurt them, at least once you get the hang of doing some of the ‘work’ yourself. Forcing yourself to take control of the settings helps you define your desired image and thus increases your chances of hitting that target. Then you and create the image that tells the story YOU want to tell, rather than the one Program Mode serves up without you.
