Question about Aperature Priority vs. AE mode

[Hobs]

Hi All,
I'm a total noob who is trying to learn all I can before my first SLR arrives in a week or so (the waiting is killing me). I was reading the tutorials and have a question after reading Tiberius47's peice on the different shooting modes.

In AE the camera picks the sweet spot for a picture, setting-wise. The tutorial states that you can adjust up and down the scale from there - raise aperature/lower speed/etc or the opposite. All while the camera is adjusting everything to get the best shot at the new settings.

In Aperature Priority you pick the ap setting and the camera does the rest.

My question is: how are these fundamentally different. Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing in both setting? For example if I want an ap setting of 8 - i could roll through the setting combinations in AE untill i got to the one at f8, or I could got to A and dial straight to f8. Since the camera adjusts all other settings shouldn't I arrive at the same place using either approach, or is there something else that happens that I'm not catching?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Big Mike]

shouldn't I arrive at the same place using either approach

Pretty much yes.

You could also put it into shutter priority mode and adjust the shutter speed until the aperture turns up at F8.

In any of the auto modes (including the priority modes) you will end up with the same exposure. (although the DOF and motion blur will change with the aperture & shutter speed).

To change the exposure, you can use EC (exposure compensation) or put the camera into manual mode. This is, more important to know/understand than which shooting mode you are in.