Showing up late to this party and I see lots of very good explanations and tips. If this were for film cameras I wouldn't have much to say as the little instamatic 126 or 110 cameras(or that awful disc one) I used had no controls.
Unless I'm in extreme conditions like night sky or astrophotography(AP), I usually prefer to let the camera sort out the best combination of exposure and iso within the limits I set, usually 100-800 on my k50 and k5, and set the dial to "A" aperture mode, which lets me use the iris to set depth of field as needed for the shot, while letting the computer figure out the hard stuff. I also use the exposure offset in tougher light conditions like winter time low sun. You can preview the result with the manual iris button or post shot previews if the action doesn't allow setup time. Low light or indoors usually requires a bit more compromise but this setup has served me well most of the time.
I consider my digital cameras to be computer instruments, like all my other tech. By researching the sensor and experimenting with raw output long exposure shots at different iso/gain settings that the imx071 sensor used in the k5 and k50 that lower gain has better dynamic range and less noise and that given a fixed(ground subjects) or tracking(night sky) mount, I found that longer exposures at lower iso worked better with less noise and better colors than combining(stacking) more shots at high gain and shorter exposures. While this doesn't translate directly to daytime photography, which often doesn't allow for a tripod, it did show me that it's easier to not introduce error/noise in the photo than it is to fix it once it's there.
My takeaway from this thread is the realization that I too have been needlessly wearing out my encoders(knobs) with 1/3 stops. :P
Last edited by blues_hawk; 05-18-2022 at 06:24 AM.
Reason: thought process...