To dial, or not to dial…?
Mode dial or camera dial
Exposure modes (or ‘shooting modes’ or ‘camera modes’) are just different ways of controlling the three elements of the Exposure Triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
There are two basic types.
On compact or point-and-shoot cameras, you might get Auto or Scene modes that do everything for you based on the kind of environment you’re in or the kind of shots you’re taking. Hence, an icon showing someone skiing is something you’d choose if you were halfway up a mountain and didn’t know what to do!
On more advanced DSLR cameras, you usually get the modes that allow you a bit more control:
P stands for Program
A stands for Aperture Priority
S stands for Shutter Priority (or Tv for ‘Time Value’ on Canon cameras)
M stands for Manual
The basic trade-off here is between convenience and control. As you learn more about photography, you’ll want more and more control. That means you’ll probably end up using Manual mode with Auto ISO, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the others. They all have their uses…
Auto
There are very few cameras on the market that offer no manual control of the exposure at all. It’s more normal to find one or two Auto modes along with all the options on the mode dial. Sony has ‘Intelligent Auto’ and ‘Superior Auto’, which is just a higher-quality version.
They both control the aperture, shutter speed and ISO, so you don’t need to worry about a thing!
This kind of point-and-shoot option is obviously quite convenient sometimes, but it can let you down badly in difficult lighting conditions or if the camera ‘guesses’ wrongly about the type of shot you want to take!
Scene
Entry-level cameras are aimed at beginners to make their lives easier. Part of that involves suggesting ‘scene’ modes that provide ALL the exposure settings you need for a given situation.
This is a slight upgrade on pure Auto, but how many scene modes there are depends on the camera. The more there are, the more accurate the exposure settings will probably be.
To access the scene modes, you can sometimes just rotate the main dial on the top right of the camera body to whichever icon matches the shot you have in mind. Alternatively, you might have to choose ‘SCN’ and then pick from a list on the LCD.
Either way, you’ll end up with an exposure mode that probably works most of the time for ‘standard’ shots in a given environment. Yes, the camera will sometimes make mistakes, but the advantage is that you don’t need to worry about your exposure settings as they’ll all be chosen for you.
There are lots of possible scene modes, as shown by this list of icons from Sony:
Every camera is different, so I won’t list all the meanings, but here are a few useful ones:
Portrait (the people and face icons) lets you take portrait shots of people.
Macro mode (the flower icon) is designed to let you take close-up pictures of flowers and insects.
Sports mode (the sprinter icon) is designed to ‘freeze’ action shots of athletes etc.
Landscape mode (the mountain icon) helps you take landscape shots.
Low light mode (the candle icon) lets you take pictures in dark environments.
Program
Program mode still determines the ‘correct’ exposure by controlling aperture, shutter speed and ISO, but it goes one step further than Scene mode by letting you choose various other settings such as these:
ISO value
white balance
colour space
focus mode
metering mode
exposure compensation
flash control
On some Nikon cameras, you can even trade-off a faster shutter speed against a wider aperture by turning the main command dial one way or the other.
All this gives you a little bit more confidence in your settings, but of course it does mean you need to know what they should be in the first place!
If you’re an absolute beginner, that might be too much to ask, but the more photos you take and the more you learn about photography, the more decisions you’ll be able to make for yourself.
Aperture Priority
This is a common ‘halfway house’ between automatic and manual exposure modes: the camera still decides the correct exposure, but at least you can choose the aperture that gives you the depth of field you’re looking for.
Typically, you can also choose your ISO with Aperture Priority (or Shutter Priority), but most cameras have an Auto ISO option, too.
The only danger with using Auto ISO in one of the priority modes is that you have to trust the camera to change the right parameter. For example, if you’re on Aperture Priority with Auto ISO and the sun goes behind a cloud, will the camera boost the ISO or choose a slower shutter speed?
Sometimes, it won’t matter, but sometimes it will. If you end up trying to take an action shot with a shutter speed that’s too slow, you’ll just end up with a blurry mess!
Shutter Priority
Like Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority does half the work for you. It chooses the right aperture (and ISO if you use Auto ISO), but this time you can pick the right shutter speed. This is obviously more useful for action shots when the ability to freeze the action is more important than the ability to control depth of field.
Shutter Priority is particularly useful for slow pans. When I’m taking a slow pan, I set the ISO to the minimum possible value and switch to Shutter Priority so that I can set the shutter speed I want. I’ve even added a slow pan custom preset on my Sony a1 mirrorless cameras so that I can choose the right settings at a moment’s notice.
Again, though, you just need to be careful if you use Auto ISO as the camera might make the wrong decision when changing either the aperture or the ISO.
Manual
A lot of professional photographers shoot in ‘full manual’, setting their own shutter speed, aperture and ISO. This works especially well for bird photography when the light is constant but the background varies in tone from dark to light. However, going full manual is quite a scary prospect to many people.
In fact, there’s a useful compromise that I always recommend, which is to shoot in Manual with Auto ISO. That way, you shouldn’t have to worry about the exposure, but you still keep control over the most important elements of the Exposure Triangle: the shutter speed and the aperture.
Those are the settings that really matter when you’re taking pictures. The shutter speed controls motion blur while the aperture controls depth of field. Those are crucial parts of the final image whereas a high ISO just makes it look a bit ‘noisier’.
You can fix a high ISO in post, but you can’t fix the wrong aperture or shutter speed…!
Having said that, Manual mode with Auto ISO only works across a ‘relevant range’ of lighting conditions. If you end up at the minimum or maximum ISO, the camera has nowhere else to go. It can’t widen the aperture or slow down the shutter speed to increase the exposure (or do the opposite to reduce it), so you’ll end up with images that are too dark (or too bright)—even if you use exposure compensation.
In those situations, you have to be prepared to compromise. For example, can you brighten your shots by using a slower shutter speed or a wider aperture than you’d ideally want?
By the same token, there’s often ‘too much light’ to take a slow pan in Africa, so you have to go to the extended ISO setting of 32 (on the Nikon D850) or 50 (on the Sony a1). That’s just not possible with Auto ISO, so it’s better to switch to Shutter Priority and set your ISO manually.
Another problem with shooting in manual with auto ISO is that it doesn’t cope well in situations when the light is fairly constant but the background is sometimes dark and sometimes light.
In that situation, the camera’s pre-programmed goal of hitting the 18% tonal target will end up overexposing the subject if the background is relatively dark and underexposing it if it’s relatively bright. If you don’t want to take that risk, you can go full manual and meter off a patch of grass or something that has a suitable mid-tone.
In general, then, there are certainly times when you might not want to use manual with auto ISO, but anything’s better than full auto!
Conclusion
As I’ve tried to explain, exposure modes are a trade-off between convenience and control. The more you know about photography, the more you’ll be able to control your settings and take the pictures you want to take.
Yes, there’s no ideal solution, but Manual mode with Auto ISO is probably the closest you’re going to get. You just have to be aware of its shortcomings in low-light situations or when taking slow pan shots in very bright conditions.
I hope this article helps you find the ideal exposure mode for your photography. Good luck on your next shoot…!
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