Which mode for which situation?

Learning goal

Facing a scene, you will be able to decide within a few seconds which shooting mode to use. You will tie the decision to a single question, what you want to protect in this frame; suggest a starting setting for common situations such as portraits, groups, movement, landscapes, night and stage light; notice and prevent the module's three most common mistakes, lengthening the time too much in dim light, shooting a group with a wide aperture and avoiding ISO; and, whichever mode you choose, make a habit of a last step that checks, before you press, that faces of every tone are correctly exposed.

The question

You are at a family get-together. In the morning you want to photograph your grandmother's portrait in the garden; at noon the children are running after a ball; in the afternoon everyone gathers and lines up for a group photo; and in the evening everyone sits down at the table under a single lamp. Each scene wants something different, and there are five or six letters on the camera's dial.

Portrait, sport, landscape: which mode should you choose? Instead of a table to memorize, this question can be answered with a single question: what do I want to control in this frame? This lesson gathers what you have learned throughout the module around this single question and gives a practical starting point for each scene.

Context

In this module you learned what exposure is, what each of the three settings does besides light, how trade-offs are made in stops, and how A, S and M modes work. Now you know that you can reach a photo's brightness by more than one path and that each path makes you pay a different cost. What remains is to use this knowledge at the moment of shooting, when there is no time to think.

Choosing a shooting mode isn't a test of talent. In a fast-changing scene, choosing full auto or P mode is also a legitimate decision; what matters is that the decision is made knowingly. Most experienced photographers go back and forth between two or three modes through the day: as the scene changes, what they want to protect changes too. The suggestions in this lesson aren't a list of rules but starting points that you will fine-tune.

Simple explanation

What question does the decision start with?

In every scene the first question is the same: what do I want to protect in this frame? This is your priority. If the answer is the slice of sharpness itself, that is if how much the background softens or how much is sharp from front to back matters, choose A mode. If the answer is movement, that is if you want to freeze a moment or show a flow, choose S mode. If both sharpness and movement matter and the light is constant, choose M mode; if both matter but the light is changing, combine M mode with Auto ISO.

If none of them matters in particular, for example if you just want to catch a passing moment, P mode or full auto is a good choice. This question can be asked in a few seconds in every scene, and its answer tells you directly which letter to turn the dial to. Once the question settles in, you start deciding without looking at tables. This decision order has a second step once the decision is made: watching what the camera changes in the mode you chose: the time in A, the aperture in S, the marker on the scale in M, the ISO value with Auto ISO.

What are the starting settings for common scenes?

Each scene type has a good starting point. In a single-person portrait, A mode and a wide aperture, for example between f/2 and f/4, soften the background; be careful not to let the time drop below 1/125. In a group photo of two or three rows, A mode again, but a narrower aperture, a value around f/8, takes everyone into the slice of sharpness. For running children, sport or animals, S mode and a time shorter than a five-hundredth of a second, together with Auto ISO, freeze movement.

In a landscape on a tripod, A mode or M mode, an aperture around f/8 and the base ISO give a clean frame with deep focus; whatever the time, the camera stays still. A night street under lampposts or a room lit by a single lamp gives the most consistent result in M mode, because the light is constant. For a stage show, concert or wedding hall where the lights change, the combination of M mode and Auto ISO meets the changing light while keeping the aperture and time in your hands. To let a waterfall flow, S mode or M mode on a tripod works with times starting from half a second.

How do you prevent the module's three most common mistakes?

Lengthening the time too much in dim light is at the top of the list. In A mode or auto, the camera drops the time below the safe limit to keep the brightness, and frames stay bright but shaky. To prevent it, glance at the time on the display in A mode; if there are people, set a longest time limit in Auto ISO, or fix the time yourself in S mode. A sharp face with visible grain easily takes the place of a shaky face.

Shooting a group photo with a wide aperture is also common. With f/1.8, in a two-row group the faces in the back row soften; the people in the back especially get both less light and less sharpness. For a group, stop the aperture down and line people up at as equal a distance from the camera as possible. Being afraid of ISO, on the other hand, leads to settling for a dark photo. Keeping ISO low in dim light and shooting dark often produces more grain in frames brightened afterward. After keeping the aperture and time within reasonable limits, don't hesitate to make up the missing light with ISO.

Whichever mode you choose, what is the last step?

Whatever the mode, look at the faces before you press or right after the first frame. This final check matters because in A and S modes the camera pulls the scene toward the average; a dark face in front of a bright background can stay dark, and a light face in front of a dark background can stay too bright. In these modes you correct with compensation: in A, compensation shifts the time, in S the aperture, and in manual with Auto ISO usually ISO. In full manual, on the other hand, you find the right setting for the face once with a test frame, and then don't touch it.

This last check takes a few seconds but rescues the thing most often lost, a person's face. Zoom in on the face on the screen: can detail be made out on the shaded side of dark skin, and have the shining points of light skin, the forehead and the tip of the nose, turned pure white? If different skins sit side by side at a table, zoom in on each face one by one. The choice of mode decides a photo's sharpness and movement; this last check decides whether people look their own color in that photo.

Visual evidence

Imagine photographing a family get-together day from start to finish. In the morning, for your grandmother's portrait in the garden, you choose A mode and f/2.8; the camera sets the time to 1/800, the trees behind are soft, and your grandmother's wrinkled face and the texture of her white headscarf are sharp. At noon, when the children start playing with a ball, you switch to S mode, fix the time at 1/1000 and turn on Auto ISO; the ball frozen in the air, the flying hair and the laughter are sharp.

In the afternoon, when everyone lines up in two rows, you go back to A mode and stop the aperture down to f/8; the face of the dark-skinned uncle in the back row is as sharp as those in the front row. In the evening, at the table under a single lamp, you switch to M mode: you take a test frame at f/2.8, 1/125 and ISO 3200 and look at the faces. The cheek of the light-skinned niece sitting close to the lamp is glowing a little, while the dark skin of the grandfather opposite looks good; you lower ISO to 2500 to strike the balance and leave the settings fixed. The same day, four different modes; in each, what to protect was asked first, then the faces were checked.

Common mistakes

Summary

A single question decides which mode to choose, what you want to protect in this frame: A for sharpness, S for movement, M for both and constant light, M with Auto ISO for both and changing light, and P or auto if none matters in particular. The starting settings based on this question for portraits, groups, movement, landscapes, night and stage light are only the starting point for fine-tuning. Avoiding lengthening the time too much in dim light, shooting a group with a wide aperture and running from ISO, and in every mode checking the faces and exposing different skins correctly with compensation or a manual setting, is the practical core of this module.

Mini assignment

This assignment is the module project: "The 9-Frame Experiment".

1. Find a place with a friend standing in front, a fountain flowing behind them and a wall in the distance.
2. In M mode, keeping ISO fixed, photograph the same scene at three apertures, around f/2.8, f/5.6 and f/11, each with three times, around 1/500, 1/60 and 1/8; get nine frames.
3. In each of the nine frames, note the brightness, the slice of sharpness and how movement looks, and find which ones have equivalent brightness.
4. Then shoot only in A mode for a week, and every day add to your portfolio folder at least one frame where you looked at the time on the display and checked the faces.

Check yourself

• Were you able to correctly match the frames with equivalent brightness among the nine?
• After a week, has watching the time in A mode turned into a habit by itself?
• In the week's frames, were faces of different skins recorded without getting lost in front of the background?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. If you want to control the softness of the background in a portrait, which mode is the first choice?

• A) S mode
• B) Full auto
• C) A mode
• D) Scene mode

2. If you want to choose both the aperture and the time yourself at a concert where the lights keep changing, which arrangement suits?

• A) M mode with Auto ISO
• B) Full manual and fixed ISO
• C) S mode and a fixed aperture
• D) Full auto

3. What do you do to stop the back row coming out blurred in a two-row group photo?

• A) Open the aperture to its widest value
• B) Lengthen the time
• C) Lower ISO
• D) Stop the aperture down and line people up at an equal distance from the camera

4. If a dark-skinned face in front of a bright window comes out dark in A mode, what is the last step?

• A) Brighten the photo afterward without changing the mode
• B) Give plus compensation and zoom in on the face on the screen to check
• C) Stop the aperture down to its narrowest
• D) Give minus compensation

Answers

1. C — The slice of sharpness is decided by the aperture; in A mode you choose the aperture and leave the time to the camera.
2. A — In M mode the aperture and time stay with you; Auto ISO hits the brightness by meeting the changing light.
3. D — A narrow aperture widens the slice of sharpness, and equal distance takes everyone into that slice; the back row comes out sharp too.
4. B — The meter finds the bright window too much and darkens the face; plus compensation opens up the face, and zooming in to look confirms the result.

Summary card

• One question: what do I want to protect in this frame?
• Sharpness → A; movement → S; both and constant light → M; both and changing light → M + Auto ISO.
• If nothing in particular matters, P or auto is the right decision too.
• Watch the time in dim light, the aperture in a group, the fear of ISO in the dark.
• Whatever the mode: after the first frame, zoom in on the faces and check.

Bridge to the next lesson

Throughout this module we saw many times that the camera measures light and suggests a brightness, and that this suggestion goes wrong on white sand, in snow and against dark backgrounds. So how does the camera really measure light, and why does it try to pull every scene to the same gray? The next module goes inside metering: it explains how the camera looks at a scene and how to sense its mistake in advance.