Quote: Originally Posted by
Toofpaste39 
Word! I did not use Auto last nite when I was playing it. I was on "P" mode most of the time.
P mode is still pretty much Auto mode. Generally the only modes I use are A and M.
Aperture Priority and Manual.
Here are the things you can adjust on the camera which change the amount of light that hits the sensor... or how sensitive the sensor is to the light.
You have your ISO, it ranges probably 100-3200 for you... not real sure. It changes the sensitivity of your sensor to light. The higher number you go.. the more light the sensor recognizes. However that comes at a price. You will receiver "Noise". Which is pretty much random pixels appear as a random color.
Then you have your shutter speed... Which can be anywhere from bulb [it stays open as long as you hold the shutter release] to 1/8000 of a second. The longer your shutter speed.. the more light that is allowed to hit the sensor. But if you have your shutter speed to long, you will get shake from it... Which is your hand slightly moving causing the scene to appear soft and out of focus.
Aperture is probably the most confusing at first. With it... the Larger the number is.. the smaller the aperture gets. such as F22 is a small aperture. 1.4f is a larger wide open aperture. Aperture effects your Depth of Field. The smaller your aperture, the more depth of field you have... But also the less light you let in. At 1.4f you will have a very shallow depth of field [everything behind the object.. and parts of the object will be out of focus] but it will let in alot of light which means you can use a faster shutter speed. Apertures change with each lens. Most likely your lens has a variable aperture of like 3.5f-5.6f. Which means as you change your zoom... your minimum aperture changes. The more expensive lenses will have a bigger and fixed aperture of 2.8 or lower generally.
So.. you combine all those together to help with your exposure.
in Shutter Priority [S] You adjust your shutter, and it will adjust your Aperture to what it needs to be to achieve a "correct" exposure.
In Aperture Priority [A] You adjust your aperture, and your camera will adjust your shutter.
In Manual you adjust everything yourself by looking at the scene and looking at the light meter in your camera.. and adjusting from there to what you want the picture to look like.
ISO you generally adjust separately from everything else.
Bought a Sony Alpha A200
Im reading the manual while taking pictures of random stuff here in lovely Kandahar Afghanistan. Im pretty excited about it. One question, should I be using Auto all the time? There's a ton of modes like P, A, S, & M on the wheel selector.
Linear Mode
