Originally posted by hockmasm so the k-x has TONS of modes to shoot in. Including Scenes.
Nope, it doesn't have any more modes than any other camera. Not really. An icon on the mode dial does not a mode make. The scene "modes" (like landscape, portrait, macro, fireworks, whatever) are not really modes, they are simply mode PRESETS. They put the camera into one of the basic modes, and secondarily they set a key setting for you. For example, sports mode probably puts the camera into shutter priority AND sets the shutter speed to 1/500th sec or something like that. Not a special mode: You could do the same thing yourself in Tv mode and indeed WOULD do it if you knew how to use your camera.
I'm usually a very even tempered and reasonable person. But scene modes annoy me.
Anyway, what are the REAL exposure modes? There are basically only four:
- You control the aperture and the camera figures everything else out
- You control the shutter and the camera figures everything else out
- You control the ISO and the camera figures everything else out. Personally I find this one incomprehensibly bizarre, but it's a logical possibility.
- You control everything.
It's slightly messier than that, because there's the possibility of using auto-ISO. But those are the basic ideas. There are three basic settings: shutter, aperture, and ISO. So there are four basic modes: you give one of the three settings priority, or you take charge of all three of them.
NOTE that, on the higher-end Pentax DSLRs (the K10D/K20D and the K-7), hyperprogram (P) and hypermanual (M) are NOT REALLY DISTINCT MODES at all. These features simply give you access to something that is otherwise a little harder to get to. Normal P on my K20D works like P on the K-x: the camera figures the exposure. The only difference on the K10D/K20D & K-7 is that you can turn the rear e-dial and go into effective Av mode. If you don't turn the front or rear e-dial, you're in P mode plain and simple. In other words, the hyperprogram feature on these cameras isn't a separate mode, it's just a shortcut to Av or Tv. In the same way, what makes M mode "hypermanual" is simply the green button, which makes it possible to have the camera set the shutter and aperture for you quickly, as if you were in P. The ability to lock the exposure in M and adjust both settings by moving one dial is simply another convenience—although if you use M like this much, it's very like being in P mode.
Quote: What do you shoot in?
This is a difficult question for me to answer, because over the last four years I've gone back and forth a bit. What I want, when I'm shooting, is control. And to have control, I have to have awareness.
For a long time, I shot only in M.
And then in mid-2008, I discovered hyperprogram (P) on my K10D/K20D cameras. This is a brilliant idea. In P, with the help of the EC (+/-) button, I can control the exposure just about as fully as I can in M, and it's easier and quicker and—most important perhaps—the change of me totally blowing an exposure is lower. I was so used to shooting M that it took me a while, and several false starts, before hyperprogram (P) clicked with me. And then I shot mostly in P for over a year, starting (I think) in late 2008 and extending through most of 2009.
So now I'm back shooting M again.
I'm actually not terribly happy about this. I liked hyper-P, once I got used to it. And I really wish that the camera could figure out my exposure with only a little guidance from me.
The problem is, it just can't. P works pretty well a lot of the time, but it breaks—gives me an unexpected or apparently inconsistent result—so often that, for me anyway, using M turns out to be easier. I'm fully aware that this is a personal thing.
In P, even if I'm using it as effective Av by setting the aperture manually and even if I'm riding the +/- button, I get goofy exposures that I don't expect, because I point the camera at something reflective for a second, or because I tilt the camera a little and suddenly get more sky affecting the camera's meter than there was a second earlier. I tried using AE-L in P mode, so that once I had the settings the way I wanted them, I hit AE-L and recomposed my shot. That worked. But at that point, what I was doing in P was MORE COMPLICATED than just working in M. In other words, in P I had to
- Set my aperture with the rear e-dial
- Look at the scene and make a guess about the necessary EC, then hold down +/- and turn the rear e-dial to adjust EC
- Hit AE-L to lock exposure
In other words, I'm frequently turning THREE dials. But in M, I usually only have to mess with 2 dials.
- Set aperture—this is a given based largely on a guesstimate or (sometimes) a precise calculation regarding depth of field
- Set shutter, keeping an eye on the meter in the finder and moving shutter until the meter's where I want it
Of course, I could skip the third (AE-L) step in P mode. But then I really do NOT have the complete control in P that I get in M. If a constantly fluctuating shutter speed actually meant that my exposures were BETTER, I'd be fine with it. I'm a results-oriented guy. But they're not. So my choices are, shooting in P and deal with some inconsistency in exposures that's a result of the camera's reacting to things that I don't think it should react to; or shoot in M and accept the fact that I'll screw up an exposure now and then.
I'd rather blame myself than the camera.
There are two other differences between hyper-P and M that matter to me.
Shooting in hyper-P requires thinking in terms of EC, constantly. In M, I just put the aperture and shutter where I want them—watching the meter reading, of course—and I'm done. I almost got used to thinking in terms of EC. But there's something very abstract about it. It involves some mental math that I would rather not do. It's like having to add two weights together routinely, and you get one of the weights in pounds and the other in kilograms. I would have to translate the Kg value to pounds constantly. This is like interpreting the shutter in terms of EC. How much easier to add pounds and pounds—or on the camera, simply to know that this shot requires an aperture of f/4 and a shutter of 1/300th sec!
Secondly, when you start doing a lot of flash work, especially off-camera flash with radio triggers, you pretty much have to do everything manually, both on the camera and on the flashes. I could switch from M mode to P depending on the circumstances, and I know photographers who do. I respect their ability to do that. For me it's easier to work just one way so at the moment I'm back doing everything in M. I do blow an exposure every now and then. On the other hand, M slows me down just a little, makes me work more deliberately, and I think I am also getting more really good exposures.
On a side note: I'm just about ready to abandon auto-ISO.
Quote: However, i have been trying AV mode but it seems no matter what f-stop i use the pictures look the same...the shutter adjusts.
Am i doing somethign wrong?
You aren't DOING anything wrong. What's wrong is that you don't understand what you're doing. :-)
As you change the aperture, the shutter adjusts, so the EV stays the same. But exposure value isn't all there is! Changing the aperture changes the depth of field.
Will