DSLR Preferred Shooting Modes

[shamrock838]

Greetings,

My Canon D60 DSLR offers the following shootings modes:
Basic Zone:
Full Auto
Portrait
Landscape
Close-Up
Sports
Night Portrait
Creative Zone:
Program AE
Shutter-Priority AE
Aperture-Priority AE
Manual Exposure
Auto Depth-of-Field AE

Do these modes differ much on your DSLRs?

Just curious … but what shooting modes do you use most frequently … and why? Thanks.

Mike (shamrock838)

[pgengler]

I don't have it to look at right now, but I think my 30D has all the same things (perhaps missing ADEP, but I'm not sure). I spend most of my time in Av (aperture priority), with the aperture set depending on my needs. I'll sometimes change over to Tv (shutter priority) for shooting prop planes. Rarely, I won't really care about the shutter or aperture setting and I'll stick the camera into P and let it handle things; this is usually when I'm trying to use a flash, though I'm currently working on trying to get a better handle on lighting and exposure.

[nwafan20]

Yeah, I spend most of my time split between M, P, Av, and Tv. It all depends on my needs at the time.

[T-Bird76]

TV mode 500th to 640th of a second on bright sunny days, reason..planes are fast.

[pgengler]

TV mode 500th to 640th of a second on bright sunny days, reason..planes are fast.

I use a different approach for things; I almost always use Av for my plane shots, setting the aperture to f/8 (right around where it's most sharp). Usually there's plenty of sun, so an ISO setting of between 100 and 200 (with the 30D, which has 1/3 ISO stops) pushes the shutter speed high enough to freeze the plane. Plus, this way I can set the shutter speed in Tv to something lower, then just turn the dial one position for trying to get prop blur when a Dash 8 or something comes by.