What % of your phots are taken using "P" setting? C'mon, be honest

[keith reeder]

<p>Nope, never happened.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>P mode? Hmmm. What's that?</p>

[rdavis]

 

<p>0% P<br>

99% Av<br>

I've heard this is a good way to carry a camera just in case you have a 'quick' shot opportunity.<br>

Perhaps in the bag.............?</p>

 

[james_atria]

<p>I would honestly say AV 80-90% of the time and then M the rest. I rarely use Shutter priority since it's not necessary for what I tend to shoot. I think the only time my camera has ever been in "P" was when I hand it to my wife for the day. </p>

[anand_dhupkar]

<p>I am never on 'P'. I am on aperture priority mode - because I like to control the depth of field more thant anything else. But you gave me a good idea - when I hand over my camera to my wife/daughter to take pictures, I should change it to 'P', thanQ</p>

[glenn_wright]

<p>None<br>

90% AV<br>

10% TV</p>

[kris-bochenek]

<p>I stick with M mode all the time.</p>

[l._keyes]

<p>M 90%<br>

AV/TV 10%</p>

<p>unless I hand the camera to my husband, in which case it goes to P along with a hope and a prayer.</p>

[yog_sothoth]

<p>I don't even use my G11 in auto mode. I consider AV to be a crutch, but one that I use a lot.</p>

[mark_ethridge]

<p>Probably about half the time. When the camera's going to choose the same setting I would (or the setting doesn't really matter), why shouldn't I just let it? It's kind of like manually shifting my automatic transmission car. Occasionally it's necessary, but why do it the rest of the time? I will admit that a good deal of my photos are snapshots of the kids that are not difficult to meter. If I'm taking a portrait or shooting a landscape, then I'll override. If there's a lot of action, I'll override. I recently took pictures of the record snowfall here, and that required quite a bit of manual override. </p>

<p>The camera's always in P mode when I hand it to my wife.</p>

[david_klaffenbach]

<p>The "manual is badge" argument is not an accurate statement, at least not for me.</p>

<p>When I first got an SLR that wasn't purely manual (old camera was a Pentax K1000) I started out playing with P mode, but I found that the exposure trajectories used by my Nikon weren't right for what I was shooting, as I was shooting mostly handheld and they appear to have chosen a compromise between what one might choose for tripod and handheld, so I had to correct it all the time. So I switched to aperture priority. However I soon figured out that the fancy metering system made a decision with each and every photograph and that I disagreed with it fairly often. This got hammered home the first time I shot a basketball game and some shots were bright and blurry and some were dark and crisp; the camera was changing exposure depending on dark jerseys or white jerseys or the lighted scorer's table being in the frame. There was no way I could ride exposure compensation to fix those problems, so I soon found myself shooting M and spot metering as well.</p>

<p>Once I switched to M+spot, everything felt easier, not harder. Now it's just part of my routine to set appropriate WB, look around with spot metering and pick an exposure (ISO/aperture/shutter) and do a test shot or two looking at histograms. From there nothing changes unless I see a lighting change that I want to respond to. No more reverse engineering of the camera's algorithms and more thought on composition and timing. I started doing this in gyms, but have found it to work well for me in most situations.<br>

One other bonus: I get to skip past any "My BR549 camera's hyperspectral 4D metering is overexposing the sky" discussions in the fora as I just don't know much about what my camera would do that way.</p>

<p>So, it's not about wearing a badge. I didn't go to M because someone said it would make me a professional (which I'm not in any case). I do occasionally evangelize about why I find it a more comfortable way to do things. And yes, sometimes I use one of the auto modes when I've got no time to set anything up, but that would probably be the green auto mode or the no-flash scene mode. To the OP's question, I never use P.</p>

[JohnMWright]

<p>0%. I use Av or M.</p>

<p>If my wife uses the camera however, it is either on P or the green zone. ;-)</p>

[scott_murphy_photography]

<p>0% and only about 10% of all my photos are taken digitally as well.</p>

[dillan k]

<p>I haven't used 'P' in years. I shoot probably 90% in Av, and the remaining in M--mostly when I am using a flash. </p>

[mjferron]

<p>Av 90% of the time. M when hooked to studio lights.</p>

[stp]

<p>0% on P. 98% on Av because I've found the Canon matrix metering is amazingly good. 2% on M. I always use a tripod, so depth of field is of primary concern, shutter speed is a secondary concern; I photograph landscapes that don't move very fast.</p>

[travismcgee]

<p><em>What do most of us do when DoF isn't critical? We open the lens up for the fastest shutter speed and shoot.</em></p>

<p>I can't say that I do that. I try to think about DoF and shutter speed for every shot and set the camera appropriately (mostly using Av), but when neither one matters, you have what Bryan Peterson calls a "who cares?" exposure. In that case, I don't just go with the fastest shutter speed, but rather with the sharpest aperture. Somewhere around f/8 on my lens. </p>

[gyuker]

<p>Av 70%, M 20%, Tv 10%. Can't remember ever using P.</p>

[swilson]

<p>0% on P, Almost all on Av or M</p>

<p>For me there is not good reason to use P.</p>

[anthony_zipple]

<p>P 40%<br>

M 30%<br>

Av 30%</p>

[sheldonnalos]

<p>P 0%<br /> Av 90%<br /> M 10% (strobes)</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>0% P. I use maybe 25% M mode and aperture priority for 75% these days. I don't find shutter priority or program useful for the way I shoot. When I work on tripod I use manual mode only as I don't like uncontrolled changes. For hand-held work if the lighting is even I will use manual mode, if it's highly variable, aperture priority. When I shoot hand-held, it's either architectural stuff on the go (in which case I want to stop down but I still shoot at higher shutter speeds than program mode would suggest), or people subjects. For people shots I need to control the background blur hence aperture priority. S mode is useful for when you want to maximize DOF at a given shutter speed but this is a problem for me as the image look is very dependent on the aperture, hence I can't let a machine control that.</p>

[crow0806]

<p>I leave it on P for that quick wildlife or people shot that I wouldn't get otherwise. It took me awhile to realize how many shots I was missing because it wasn't on P. Most of my shots are landscape and I use aperture for that.</p>

[matthijs]

P 70% (family, street, walk around)

A 20% (shallow DoF arty stuff)

M 10% (studio lights for portraits and macro)

[greg_peterson3]

<p>Could somebody tell me where to find the "P" setting.</p><div></div>