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Sometimes shooting in automatic isn’t so bad–but I still like aperture priority more
By Tris Hussey | March 17, 2008
When I only had a Canon point and shoot camera I stuck to Automatic and the presets for most of my pictures. Then I got into Program mode and started to play with white balance and such. With my D80, shot in auto a little bit, but pretty much started with aperture priority from the get go.
However, is shooting in auto or one of the presets a bad thing? According to Natalie Norton writing on digital photography school, shooting in automatic has a lot of benefits:
ANY friend of mine who comes to me early on in their photography “career” asking for lessons is forbidden from shooting in any mode other than AUTO for at LEAST 3-6 months. In my mind that’s enough time to get your framing style down to the point where it’s just, for lack of a better word, automatic. . . second nature. When that happens, THEN you’re ready to explore other settings. I’ve known too many photographers who are technically off the chart but can’t frame an image worth poo. Don’t fall into that trap by plugging up the artist in you by focusing too much on the technical aspect. It will come. It will. I PROMISE. Source: 4 Reasons Not to Write off Shooting in Automatic
I’ve been shooting long enough that I’m pretty good at framing (I can always improve of course), but the freedom of auto, and the other presets, does let you focus on the subject not the settings.
So on Saturday the kids and I went to a park by the ocean and I figured it was the perfect time to give this a shot (so to speak).
This was shot in automatic mode:
It’s not bad, a little washed out I think. The depth of field is a little too much for my liking, as well. It’s pretty good though. This is a shot using some of my standard aperture priority settings (f/2.5 ISO 250, -0.3 exposure, more vivid colour):
Of course I like this one better. But … I think for general practice I’m going to play with automatic and other presets so I can work on framing better pictures and capturing things that I might lose in fussing with settings.
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