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Setting Exposure >

Your camera has exposure modes.

Exposure modes are often located on a knob on the top of the camera.

The modes are designated by letters and icons.

We'll look at the letters here, and the icons in the next section.

On Canon cameras, the exposure modes include the following.

The Auto exposure mode is green.

It may be the word Auto, a camera icon, or a rectangle.

On Nikons, and many other cameras, the exposure modes include the following.

What does each of the above exposure modes do?

The Auto exposure mode uses program exposure mode, and also sets many defaults on the camera.

Program, P, is the most convenient exposure mode.

You don't have to do anything.

You can ignore lens opening and shutter speed.

That's a problem.

If we don't have to use these tools, our photographs won't be as good.

Aperture-priority exposure mode, Av or A, is the most useful exposure mode.

Because you have to set the lens opening, you'll use this valuable tool more often.

We'll explore depth-of-field below.

Shutter-priority exposure mode, Tv or S, is useful for freezing or blurring movement.

You choose the shutter speed, and the camera selects the lens opening.

Manual exposure mode, M, is useful if you want to bracket your exposures.

Bracketing is the taking of several photographs of a scene at different exposure settings.

Many photographers now use automatic bracketing or use exposure compensation.

There's another discussion of exposure modes in the Tips section.