Stop Shooting in Auto
This is the first in a series of articles on why you should not shoot in auto on your Digital SLR camera. Yesterday I shot five photos of a scene using the five modes on a digital SLR camera, starting with auto, then program, aperture priority, shutter priority, and ending with manual mode. In this blog, I am going to discuss and show you the photos from the auto mode vs. the program mode.
I chose a scene that had a lot going on with foreground and background details surrounding the subject and also some highlights and shadows. It was a cloudy day so the tonal variations were not as broad as if it were a sunny day. It was a cold day, but a perfect day for photography. I thought it would be interesting to see how each mode captures the scene differently.
I started with auto which is the green rectangle on the mode dial. In auto the camera chooses all the settings including aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance, and basically does all the thinking for you. I also noticed that the back button focus does not work with the auto mode. This photo is pictured below.
Next is program mode which is P on the mode dial. In this mode, the photographer chooses the ISO and can select a white balance preset while the camera chooses the aperture and shutter speed. I choose a low ISO of 100 and a white balance preset for cloudy. This photo is also pictured below. The aperture is the same as in the previous photo, but because the ISO is different the shutter speed changes. There is also an obvious difference in the white balance. There is already an improvement just changing from auto to program. But wait, it gets better.
To view a comparison of the remainder of the photos, please visit the blog again.
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To view my fine art photography site visit Mary Buck Photography.
