Daily Adventure - Critique Please

[Tim Tucker]

I am aware to avoid the creative modes. I am simply thinking in terms of the custom menus where you can choose an order of the camera controls. I'm not sure of another way to word that. I have been using the base ISO as often as I can. I shoot with a tripod or monopod most of the time since my hands are far from steady.

tirediron says it best above. They are just a way of automating or putting close to hand features that you use often. A lot of the time you can just confuse yourself with them, some of the time you can save yourself time and trouble sorting between menus. But you really need to discover what you use most by yourself. Copying someone else settings will give you no insight into why, and that'll just confuse you more.

I shot with a Nikon F2 for 25 years, full manual with a hand held meter. With static subjects I do much the same on digital only I use the cameras metering. At base ISO I only need the metering and AE lock controls (I only use MF lenses). If you shoot moving subjects in low light then you can play with automating the auto-ISO/shutter speed settings, if you like to point and shoot with jpegs sometimes then configure one of the pre-set modes to save you time digging in the menus. Understand what you are doing and what you want, then automate some of it to make it easier.