P Mode on Canon DSLR

[rabaroo]

Hi

Ive had my Canon 450D for a couple of weeks now, have mainly been playing around using the Av and Tv modes to do various test shots with depth of field and shutter speed primerily

today I've decided to read the manual and found the P Mode, which apparantly auto selects the exposure and aperture for you?

Just curious what the use cases for this mode are ? it seems to be a semi-automatic mode, in that you get more control over iso etc than in full auto mode (and you can obvs shoot in RAW which i saw as a great disadvantage of full auto) - is this the only main benefit?

yet to determine the benefit of the Auto Depth of Field mode... when would I use that?



thanks for any pointers!

 

[candlestick]

Auto depth of field? When you need to ramp up your shutter speed, for togging fast moving objects for example - the camera will pick a wide enough aperture to allow more light in to ensure that your bird in flight or whatever stays in focus.

Other advantages of P over Auto - white balance, metering control, exposure compensation etc.

 

[Snap_Happy]

The P-mode still allows you to play with DoF - if you half-nudge the shutter release to get the info up in the viewfinder, then the little clicky dial thing in front of the release will change the aperture [within the limits of what the camera thinks is correctly exposed], with the shutter speed auto-adjusting accordingly.

As for auto depth of field, still don't quite understand what it's for, despite candlestick's advice - with a quick play it seems to try and focus as many points as possible?? [ie it doesn't let you select single point metering]

The other advantage of P is that it's a perfect point and shoot mode - I have never used the green square, but P is quite useful for just turning the camera into a P+S for those occasions when, as per paparrazi, you just want to click, and worry about the niceties later!

 

[candlestick]

Oh aye, and P doesn't put the flash up for no reason!!!

 

[jgs001]

Up till last week, I've generally been using P mode as it's the simplest mode that allows capture in RAW format. As I'm reading more and more, I'm getting more of an understanding of the limitations of this mode, but a lot of the time it can capture things quite well. The Auto DOF mode is apparently ... designed to be used for people (I think ) so that you get everbody in the FOV in focus or something like that.

 

[rdh]

A-DEP is recommended in the Canon manual for group portraits and landscapes if I recall correctly. Never used it myself.

The P mode combined with the right ISO & WB (JPEG mode) settings and exposure compensation is a very good way to take pictures, unless you need a specific kind of shot (i.e. shallow DOF).

Don't think the P mode is 'noob', since new cameras - in most conditions - are very good at choosing them automatically. Ken Rockwell stresses this point regularly (love him or hate him, he has some good points). The more experience you get, specifically, the more you understand light and exposure, the more comfortable you'll feel with Av, Tv and then manual.