Why don't people like program mode?

[Antithesis]

I didn't want to sift throught the last 5 novels on this thread, but I think I have an appropriate answer for this question:

Program mode is not an idiot mode, but is actually very efficient. It's as useful as manual mode, except you can adjust aperture or shutter speed, and you will get a continual equivalent exposure. I haven't played with it too much as I usually shoot in manual, but it seems like you could be quicker to adjust your settings.

It's a given that the exposure might be off, but if you use compensation like in Tv or Av, it would be fine. It just seems useful because you can make a quick jump to a specific shutter speed without having to adjust aperture and vice versa. Or having to switch modes.

 

[Senor Hound]

As it applies to the D200? Yes.

I know that P mode means different things on a Canon, though, but its still a more automated mode to help along people to make decisions for them based on the standards of some unknown engineer in Japan instead of knowing what to do themselves by setting it to full manual mode.

This is a fine attitude to have, as long as you realize 99% of the time the camera will give you the same setting as you got (remember, you can change apertures and shutter speeds in program mode). The other 1% can be fixed by looking at the photo on back, and using some exposure bracketing (or adjustment).

There is something that puzzles me about your statement above. You trust the camera to make an accurate reading of the amount of light its receiving, yet you don't trust the non-deviating mathematical formulas the camera calculates in order to get the appropriate levels? I can TOTALLY understand using manual if you are using a hand-held light meter and basing your shots from it, but this is not the case for almost everyone who uses manual mode. They trust the camera to give them the raw data, yet they don't trust the camera (a computer, mind you) to analyze the data and give them correct results? This seems illogical to me.

Determining the amount of light your camera takes in has nothing to do with art, it is totally physics-based. If you take a specific constant amount of sunlight (x amount of lumens) and use the same ISO and aperture on 100 shots in a row, you will need the same shutter speed for EVERY SINGLE SHOT (all outside factors constant). Its science, and it will be the same today, tomorrow, and probably for the next billion years.

Personally, I feel manual is for people who aren't trusting their in-camera light meter, or people who get a greater feeling of accomplishment when they don't let the camera help them (even though these same people probably try to line up the shot with the ev meter in their viewfinder). Either way, program mode is just as effective.

 

[Jedo_03]

As it applies to the D200? Yes.

...(E)ven shutter and aperture priority modes are compromise modes, but that is more to save time rather than make all the decisions for you.

Heck I use P-mode on my D200, again, when lazy or when what I am shooting is not critical. More and more I am in full manual mode when doing portraiture or important family pictures.

The guy wasn't shooting portraits or an important family picture, though...
He was upstairs on a moving bus... the bus went round a corner... he saw the building... took the shot in P mode... a second later the bus was round the next corner...
Well, I'd like to see you get a shot as good as he got, shooting from a moving bus on a bumpy road in MANUAL - unless you could get the bus driver to throw a few laps round the building while you set it up...
Jedo

 

[passerby]

I am sorry if there is a post similar to mine.

I have a coolpix which takes good picture in an instant, and my mobile phone too takes good pictures. The idea of having DSLR for me is to have fun by taking picture my way. I may want to over expose it or underexpose it. And if the pictures come out bad than I just re shoot it while having the fun. If along the way there is something that need to be taken quickly than I leave the picture taking to my greatest saviour - the Al Mighty P.:hail:

So people, hail P and the Greeny at once.

 

[Tiberius47]

I like P mode because it lets you get a shot off quickly. The only rule in photography is to get the shot. You won't miss out on the pulitzer if you say your camera was in P mode.

I don't like P mode because it doesn't give you as much freedom as the semi automatic and manual modes.

If you have time, get it on A, S or M modes. P mode is a great default mode, so you're always ready.

 

[andrew99]

I use P mode 95% of the time (Nikon D40 - I'm not sure what the difference would be on Canon). I think the combination of P mode, Exposure Compensation, and manually setting your ISO gives you enough flexibility and lets you focus on composition and so on, at least once you get used to how the camera's meter reacts. I use A, S and M only when needed for specific effects (DOF, slow shutter speed, manual flash, etc).

 

[andrew99]

<Ken Rockwell Mode>
While you knob twiddlers are fiddling with shutter speeds and aperture in M mode, I'm busy taking masterpieces in P mode!
</Ken Rockwell Mode>

 

[Mav]

<Ken Rockwell Mode>
While you knob twiddlers are fiddling with shutter speeds and aperture in M mode, I'm busy taking masterpieces in P mode!
</Ken Rockwell Mode>

LOL! :mrgreen:

 

[Early]

<Ken Rockwell Mode>
While you knob twiddlers are fiddling with shutter speeds and aperture in M mode, I'm busy taking masterpieces in P mode!
</Ken Rockwell Mode>

Chances are, you'll miss more masterpieces locked in P mode.

 

[notelliot]

i'm a pretty spacey person. the more settings i have turned on and off or whatever, the more i forget about. takes me forever to figure out what i did wrong. in manual modes, it's all right in front of you.

some people use program to their advantage. i can't.

aside from that, i think Big Mike says it best:

There is nothing inherently wrong with using automatic modes or settings...as long as you are only letting the technology do the work for you, not the thinking.

 

[Mav]

Auto modes are for people that are either lazy or don't understand how to best exploit their cameras.

Simple as that.

So you believe that about "[size=+1]P[/size]" mode?

As it applies to the D200? Yes.

I know that P mode means different things on a Canon, though, but its still a more automated mode to help along people to make decisions for them based on the standards of some unknown engineer in Japan instead of knowing what to do themselves by setting it to full manual mode. Even shutter and aperture priority modes are compromise modes, but that is more to save time rather than make all the decisions for you.

Heck I use P-mode on my D200, again, when lazy or when what I am shooting is not critical. More and more I am in full manual mode when doing portraiture or important family pictures.

OK. What you call being lazy or not knowing how is what I call being more efficient and using features that are available to you to help you get photos that you'd otherwise miss. Try chasing a 1 year old around and you'll KNOW what I'm talking about. :lmao: Not knockin ya, but your typical family shots and garden variety portraiture ain't the same thing period.

1 year olds go like this :bouncy: and like this :bounce: and like this and like this from bright areas to dark areas and back again, don't know to pose, and don't hold still for more than a second, all of which makes your camera settings go like this :crazy: and like this . P mode can make them go like this: :mrgreen: :thumbup: Seriously, if your exposure settings aren't already right the instant they hold still, you just missed a shot that's gone forever. And to know they're holding still or doing something cute enough to take a photo of, you have to be focusing all of your attention on THEM and not looking at what your meter is doing and changing up settings in manual.


"P" mode on Nikons is pretty smart. It's smart enough to favor a higher shutter speed at longer focal lengths assuming no VR. The switchover points are something like <55mm for one map, 55-135mm for another map, and >135mm for the most aggressive map as far as shutter speed. I'm pretty sure Canon is similar. If you're not happy with the settings, one click in either direction of the control wheel lets you trade off a stopped down aperture for a larger one and a faster shutter speed to freeze action or for a portrait, or vice versa for stopped down landscape/scenic shots. If things are slow in general or you don't want to be wide open, just crank up your base ISO a bit and the camera will take care of the rest. If they're too quick or too stopped down, lower it.

BTW, Nikon does make it easier to use the D200 and higher in full manual mode since they let you adjust exposure settings in full stop increments, including ISO. They give you a separate menu item for EV, ISO, and compensation step sizes. On the D80 and lower they group it all into one combo ISO / SS / Ap / ExComp increment setting, and your choices are 1/3rd stops or 1/2 stops. No option for full stops, which makes full manual shooting in dynamic lighting conditions nearly impossible. If you point the camera from bright to dark you'll have a much better chance of keeping up with a D200/300 and full stop adjustments steps, but will be furiously wheeling away on a D80 trying to do the same. It's stupid. I'd love to be able to get full stop increments on my D80, but am not going to spend double on the D200/300 level cameras just for that. I'll just learn to adapt the P/S/A (P/Tv/Av) auto modes more to my liking, which is what I've done. The D40/D50 do give you ISO adjustments in full stops only which is quite handy, but everything else is in small steps only.

Now back to my original point. Not singling out anybody here, but all of these threads or posts calling people "stupid" for one reason or another are stupid themselves, because everybody has different conditions, different styles, different things they like to shoot, might enjoy a different aspect of photography than you do, and also might have different equipment and lens limitations than you do, thus needing to shoot and operate equipment differently than you do, for their own reasons. Duh!

A recent PROGRAM mode shot.

1/320s direct fill flash shot at f/9. Right after this she went under the gym set in full shade and I didn't want it to look too flashy so I switched the SB-400 off and the shutter speed went way down (but not below my set 1/125s minimum in Auto ISO, another great auto feature for dummies) and the lens aperture opened way up and I just kept on shooting and never had to touch a thing. Think I'm lazy? BITE ME

An assistant and a reflector would have given better and more natural looking fill lighting here, but my "assistant" was busy helping our daughter down the slide just off camera, so dad had to do his own lighting. I <3 my 1/500s flash sync. :greenpbl:

 

[Mike_E]

:lmao::lmao::lmao:

:hail::hail::hail:

 

[schuylercat]

Well, THIS was a fireball...

"P" mode in the Canon space is a different animal, yes. Working the pits at a race (twelve years ago...), the lighting changes every second - down under the tents in the mechanics' bays, out in the open in full sun, 5-6 stops of difference. I would use "P" mode as a safeguard: I was paid real money to capture images of drivers, team owners, etc. Leaving my camera in aperture or shutter priority (I was ALWAYS in Tv-land when shooting the cars in motion...) was a disaster in the pits. In "P", an Unser would zip by on his scooter headed to or from the track: the camera came up, and "schpilckzz" I would get "a shot". From there, if there was time, I'd start flipping the finger wheel (aperture in "P" mode, on my A2) this way or that to try to get "THE shot."

Come to think of it, I wonder if a lot of paparazzi use "P" mode? Gawd...

And Mav's point is well taken: I have 5 kids. I have 1,923,954 photographs of the backs of their heads. Little monkeys.

It's just a variation on the tool, with a discrete limited purpose. I don't know that a lot of photographic art may be made using it, but working stiffs will hedge their bets with whatever they have. Racing photography is hugely saturated, and the business pays so damn little as it is. I don't recall the Sutton guys standing in the pits at Long Beach, checking the light with their meters, hoping for better sun and fiddling with filters as the day went by - they shot the green box sometimes, and made no bones about it. The magazines wouldn't forgive an empty box on their pages, and Sutton still rules the roost of racing photography.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Haven't had a chance to read all the responses.

I've been photographing for 25 years, usually all manual, but I respect modern technology. I've seen P next to the A and S modes (both of which I use as well) and I've also wondered if I'm missing out on some good technology...

... but I'm afraid to ask, the mighty Battou might come down on me. I wouldn't want to be considered a noob, an idiot, or worse.

Edit: or JerryPH for that matter...

 

[Battou]

Haven't had a chance to read all the responses.

I've been photographing for 25 years, usually all manual, but I respect modern technology. I've seen P next to the A and S modes (both of which I use as well) and I've also wondered if I'm missing out on some good technology...

... but I'm afraid to ask, the mighty Battou might come down on me. I wouldn't want to be considered a noob, an idiot, or worse.

Edit: or JerryPH for that matter...

I made a mistake, when you get the chance go threw the other posts, I acknowledged my error.

My answer is I don't know