Creative Modes: Are they really any good for beginners?

[pgriz]

Derrel's points echo what I've found as well. When I use the camera, I'm using usually either Av or Manual. When I hand the camera over to one of my friends or relatives who don't know/care-to-know about photography, I either put the camera in Auto mode, or dial in one of the creative modes. Then the instructions are: point the camera, half-press the shutter. if the red dot at the center lights up, shoot. DOF, blur, exposure triangle, etc. just don't figure into the equation, when the purpose is to shoot Aunt Mini and neice Sarah. Most of the people who handle the camera are initially intimidated by all the buttons and settings, so telling them just to press the shutter button makes them feel very relieved.

 

[Wingryder]

If you have a basic idea of ISO, F stop, shutter speed. Then I say to just put it in manual and play around a lot and look at the bar in the viewfinder (that will tell you if you are under/over exposed, usually). You can always start out in apeture mode so you can get a more basic understating on things with shutter speed and aperture.

I usually shoot Av, but try to do some astrophotography (which I suck at) in full manual. I was just curious as to why they had all those creative modes and who was using them. Derrel's answer made a lot of sense, they are a comfort zone for folks upgrading from P&S.

I haven't really considered them much, but others here have posted that they are great for giving others your camera for a shot OR when you just want a decent photo without having to think about settings. But, in all honesty, the exposure triangle is pretty straight forward and after a while, you just know what aperture/shutter speed you want, and set ISO and exposure comp accordingly.

 

[Derrel]

My sister uses creative modes, and my mom uses full auto. Anyone has a problem with that?!layball:

Okay everybody who's free tonight at around 6 PM...let's get a TPF mob together and head over to Techboy's mom's place and prepare to educate an AUTO-mode user!!! We will teach her a lesson! A kind, considerate LESSON! One she will never forget! lolz

 

[Designer]

For beginners, I think this would make understanding and learning from mistakes even more difficult.

it depends on what they are trying to learn. If they are starting to make editing adjustments to the camera's version of a JPG on the computer, then yes, it would be frustrating.

 

[Derrel]

Derrel's points echo what I've found as well. When I use the camera, I'm using usually either Av or Manual. When I hand the camera over to one of my friends or relatives who don't know/care-to-know about photography, I either put the camera in Auto mode, or dial in one of the creative modes. Then the instructions are: point the camera, half-press the shutter. if the red dot at the center lights up, shoot. DOF, blur, exposure triangle, etc. just don't figure into the equation, when the purpose is to shoot Aunt Mini and neice Sarah. Most of the people who handle the camera are initially intimidated by all the buttons and settings, so telling them just to press the shutter button makes them feel very relieved.

The guy that came up with the idea for the first "automatic transmission" probably thought...."Naw...this is too simple....just "D" for "Drive"???...nope...people really WANT to clutch shift clutch shift clutch shift the rest of their lives. Dumb idea. Dumb, dumb idea. It would never sell."

 

[Designer]

My sister uses creative modes, and my mom uses full auto. Anyone has a problem with that?!layball:

The creative modes are fully automatic too, but with some creative intent placed on the image by the photographer. The camera still does its thing.

 

[Designer]

The guy that came up with the idea for the first "automatic transmission" probably thought...."Naw...this is too simple....just "D" for "Drive"???...nope...people really WANT to clutch shift clutch shift clutch shift the rest of their lives. Dumb idea. Dumb, dumb idea. It would never sell."

Not to mention; power windows, power seats, power steering, power brakes, and don't get me started on air-conditioning!

 

[pgriz]

Derrel's points echo what I've found as well. When I use the camera, I'm using usually either Av or Manual. When I hand the camera over to one of my friends or relatives who don't know/care-to-know about photography, I either put the camera in Auto mode, or dial in one of the creative modes. Then the instructions are: point the camera, half-press the shutter. if the red dot at the center lights up, shoot. DOF, blur, exposure triangle, etc. just don't figure into the equation, when the purpose is to shoot Aunt Mini and neice Sarah. Most of the people who handle the camera are initially intimidated by all the buttons and settings, so telling them just to press the shutter button makes them feel very relieved.

The guy that came up with the idea for the first "automatic transmission" probably thought...."Naw...this is too simple....just "D" for "Drive"???...nope...people really WANT to clutch shift clutch shift clutch shift the rest of their lives. Dumb idea. Dumb, dumb idea. It would never sell."

And then...

We have bread-making machines,
Coffee-makers like Keuring,
Frozen Pizzas,
Propane-fired "wood" fireplaces,
Botox,
Silicone body parts,
...

We like our ease. Gimme the benefits without all that hard work. And it works every time.

 

[Wingryder]

My sister uses creative modes, and my mom uses full auto. Anyone has a problem with that?!layball:

Okay everybody who's free tonight at around 6 PM...let's get a TPF mob together and head over to Techboy's mom's place and prepare to educate an AUTO-mode user!!! We will teach her a lesson! A kind, considerate LESSON! One she will never forget! lolz

. You bring the pitch forks, I'll bring the party snacks.

 

[Designer]

I'm going to bring a dinner fork!

 

[Derrel]

Canon's television advertising slogan, "So advanced it's simple!" is what really started the 35mm SLR and autowinder "revolution". The AE-1 became like the best-selling 35mm film SLR of all time in a few short years, based on good results obtained simply...as in with almost no user intervention, no user "skill". After the camera makers sold a lot of 35mm film SLRs from the mid-1970's until the late 1980's, they looked around for the next big thing that would be a distruptive technology,and would allow them to sell all-new gear to their old existing customers. Autofocusing SLRs and all-in-one zoom lens compacts were the new next big thing, and they hit simulataneously.

Here's a case in point of how a specialized Scene m ode can outperform a camera's normal,everyday settings. Years ago, I sold a "baseball mom" a camera to take better pictures of her son playing baseball. She came back with some disappointing results...the chain-link backstop was in great focus. Uggg... I told her, "use the distant landscape mode, the "mountain symbol". SHe asked me how that would help, and I told her what I knew from having read the manufacturer's Selling Points Guide: specifically, that thecamera favors a HIGH shutter speed and FAVORS DISTANT targets, and tries to eliminate close-focusing priority tendencies. Why would that be? Well...the camera maker understood that for a DISTANT MOUNTAIN ICON, the success depends on 1) ignoring close-range interference such as typically caused by dirty airplane or train or car or tour bus windows 2) a FAST shutter speed, since many times these photos are taken from aircraft, tour buses, trains, and so on and 3) not accidentally OVER-exposing; over-exposure ruins distant landscapes pretty easily.

She came back the next time and got GOOD baseball pics by using a scene mode that basically featured 1) a built-in near-focus limiter that restricts the camera to DISTANCE-priority focus acquisition and 2) FAST shutter speed which combined with the wide aperture used limited the degree of in-focus of the close-in backstop chain links. That mode also worked well for zoo shots of caged animals, ignoring the strong patterns of close-in subjects.

One thing the "scene modes" do is to try very hard to ensure against what you might call "catastrophic blunders caused by stupid camera setting combos". You know, the realllllly serious mistakes, or grossly inappropriate permutations of exposure triangle that can result when a camera is set, well, for the polar opposite conditions. Scene modes really caught on back when I was selling cameras, with the introduction of the THEN-NEW "zoom cameras" like the Pentax IQ Zoom 90, then the IQ Zoom 120 and whatnot....basically the FIRST 28-90mm type all-in-one 35mm film cameras that used a powerful lithium battery that would last for YEARS if un-used, and could power a zoom, and a flash and a shutter and metering system and which were many peoples' introductions to a "carry camera" that was NOT their old AE-1 or their OLD Minolta SRT or whatever.

Moms and Dads and grandparents went nuts over these things. I sold a ton of them, 3,4 every day. They had scene modes because, well, the people buying them had a full-range camera and a wide-to-tele, and ZERO idea of what to do with it. These things had GOOD macro and macro flash! And 90mm telelphoto! Autofocus was only about 5 years old, and many people who had never been able to shoot a "good camera" were getting "a good camera". The scene modes really helped setting the camera, and autofocus did the focusing.
Advanced users of course will not need or want such "aids".

 

[gsgary]

I shoot all my weddings on the wedding mode

 

[Wingryder]

I guess scene modes also help for people who don't want to spend time in Photoshop as well. They seem to do a reasonable job at adjusting levels for any given mode, in camera, so that you don't have to correct them later.

 

[Derrel]

Working back to the original premise: Creative Modes: Are they really any good for beginners?

My feeling, based on my own experience and feedback from customers who were "beginnners" is that, YES, the creative modes basically eliminate the high frequency of catastrophic blunders that can result when a beginner has to set up his or her camera for some types of photography.

The big problems for beginners are mistakes more-experienced shooters do not tend to make, like confusing "16" with "a big hole" and thinking that "I thought that f/2.8 meant I'd get more depth of field, so I used that and all my pictures have crappy focus! Everything far away turned out all blurry!"

Also, a lot of beginners shoot in JPEG capture, and that's where allowing the camera the flexbility to adjust the processing/result parameters makes a lot of sense. One of the BIGGEST and BEST benefits is in auto-vignetting removal and what Nikon originally called D-Lighting, or Dynamic Range Enhancement, and a thing Canon invented called Highlight Tone Priority.

Just in case people think it's useless... Nikon's new D810 has a BRAND-NEW highlight tones metering option, so, apparently the people buying $3,299 Nikon bodies with the highest MP count of any D-SLR are going to be seeing what applying a little artificial intelligence can do to their metering. Beginners have a way of point a camera at things they see and like but which have TOUGH lighting: allowing the camera to make some decisions on how to set the tone curve, and how to expose, and then how to process that shot to a JPEG is something that the NEWER cameras can now do, pretty well. I do not think this was the case four, five generations back.

And yeah--a lot of beginners are NOT going to "mess with a computer", so the camera needs to do much more of the work! Setting the Tone Curve, how to expose a scene with a lot of darks or a lot of highlights, how to process that, all that stuff...intelligent processing has gotten a LOT better over the last few generations of cameras.

 

[Overread]

Derrel I think it really depends what kind of "beginner" we are talking about.

I think that if the beginners intent from the get go is to "Be a photographer" then the creative modes do slow things down; they can give good motivational support in good shots; but they don't really help give clarity to how to control and use the camera.

They are specifically there to not control; to take control away, which makes them ideal for the casual beginner who is less likely to want to progress beyond the scene modes.