fjrabon,
Your OP was soooooo lengthy that I took the liberty of condensing it, for those who want the tasty bite-sized morsels we've come to expect. So...here it is, your post, condensed, using modern methods designed to convey the most information in the fewest words, and with the greatest comedic and satirical effect. This condensed, bastardized, hybridized, utterly-butchered version of your post is, if you will, designed for the "Green Box" sub-set of shooters.
How I transitioned to mostly manual, and why/when I use it
"There's been a lot of talk around here lately.
Manual can be very daunting. Aperture priority is quite an amazing thing, especially in modern Nikon cameras with matrix metering.So, let's say I'm in A mode, Let's say that I dialed the perfect settings.Snap it, great. Next, in order to stand out, you can't do what everybody else is doing. And that's what A mode does.
Luckily for me, I was more or less forced into shooting M mode.Manual is a PITA if you have to hold down a little button to adjust shutter speed. And really, there's nothing wrong with shooting in A mode. A huge number of photographers shoot this way.Things are a bit more complicated than that, but that's all we need to know for now. If you just want a standard looking exposure, just shoot in A mode, or even P mode. Fiddling with the buttons to get yourself there is the easy part, though that's perhaps what seems daunting to people starting off. that makes you a photographer instead of just a snapshooter.
Shooting a black dog is tough, because naturally the eye is drawn to light things, so you have to work a bit harder.I'm not saying any of this is better or worse than anything else, that's just how I do it. Feel free to take whatever you'd like and discard whatever you'd like."