What mode do you use for events?

[Heretotherephoto]

I have mainly shot landscapes and outdoors stuff for the last couple of years. I am looking to expand my horizons a little doing more indoor work and possibly some event type things. I already have an SB-600 for my flash, but am curious what setting do most of you with experience generally use? I find mixed results in auto but my method of just playing around in manual until I get what I want is no good for moving subjects.

Do you generally just use a mode or do you find an exposure that works for you and go with it?

 

[Live_free]

If it is just a party or something were the conditions are way to varied to put it on M, A, S, or P. I would just use auto and then look at the pictures later and pick which ones you like.

 

[CSR Studio]

I use Manual for everything.

 

[rallysman]

if you're not comfortable with manual use shutter priority to make sure things don't get blurry. depending on your lens, 1/125 is usually fine for casual photos.

 

[KmH]

Whatever I'm shooting:

I use manual mode 95% of the time, aperture priority 4% of the time and shutter priority 1% of the time.

Aperture priority is used for specific sports situations and the shutter priority is used for art images now and again.

As far as strobed lighting (like a SB-600) it's closer to 98% manual mode, always off the camera, wirelessly triggered. I do occassionally use a pop up flash in manual mode for a kiss of on axis fill.

I should maybe note: I don't go anywhere without a digital SLR, speedlight (usually a SB-600), radio flash trigger transmitter and speedlight remote.

 

[Derrel]

For flash work, indoors or out, speedlight or studio flash, the Manual exposure mode is actually the easiest to work with. I use manual flash mode for about 99.9 percent of my flash photos...there's really not any need for using an automatic mode when covering an indoor event shot with flash...

It's actually downright dangerous, bordering on stupid, to cover events shot with flash with the camera set in any of the automatic modes, like Aperture priority, Shutter speed priority or Programmed Auto...in any of those three exposure modes, the camera's exposures can vary widely from frame to frame and situation to situation. In Shutter priority mode indoors in low light, the shutter speeds might drop really slow, like 1/3 second...giving huge potential for ghosting and blurring...at typical flash apertures indoors like f/8, shutter speeds in Aperture priority mode might easily run into the 1/2 second range--again, giving huge potential for blurring or ghosting. Same with programmed Auto--it will on all too often drop into very slow shutter speeds OR deliver wider-than-optimal apertures, like f/3.5--not a good choice for flash aperture in many situations at close ranges.

For most "events", a Manual exposure mode and a shutter speed of 1/60 second to 1/200 second is a safe, reasonable setting when shooting hand-held flash photos.

 

[chip]

I use A for almost everything. I sometimes use M for flash and long exposures