Aperture Preferred? Shutter Preferred?

So this post today is to get to know your beautiful DSLR better! This is not about one specific photoshoot so it will have a small mix to get my point across. Now most people who don't know how to shoot manual usually shoot in auto which is the little green camera if you have a newer dial type of camera I believe on older DSLRs it is the P option which stands for program auto which gives you a small range of options that you can change, but that is not why we are here today!

Today I am going to tell you about the Aperture Preferred option and the Shutter Preferred option. In the first image I am showing you the Nikon D700 so for that one to get to either option you have to hold down the mode button and turn the dial that is by your thumb till you hit the A or the S. Can you guess which is which? On the image to the right I am showing you the Nikon D7000 and to change the modes on that one you turn the dial till the white mark on the side is pointing at the option you want.

Now on the the fun stuff! For the Aperture Preferred you will use this option when you know that you want to create a image with a good depth of field but you don't know what to put the other settings at. If you look back to my depth of field post you will know what I'm talking about when I say depth of field. So basically you can create something like this where your subject in the front is in focus and the back is blurred.

Basically for this you are setting your f-stop and the camera changes the shutter/ISO to make the image usable  Using this option help you learn a little more about your camera because it will adjust your other settings  to make the image come out close to what you want. Now while on this setting you are going to want to put your ISO on to auto so it adjusts that you, this isn't exactly necessary but it helps with the quality.



The next one is the Shutter Preferred, and you guessed it, it lets you adjust the shutter and then it takes care of the rest. Now you may wonder when the heck do I want to do that? The answer is simple when you want to capture an image in stopped motion so if you are taking pictures of your child's soccer game or your friends children running around the playground. This way you don't end up with blurred movement. Also this is good if you know that you cant hold a camera steady worth a damn and don't have a tripod handy.You could also use it to help replicate and image like the one from my very first blog post. This way you don't have to worry about the other settings in the camera just the shutter. 

This is also helpful if you want to shoot something where there is movement visible. The best example I can come up with and unfortunately do not have on hand to show is water. If you are photographing some type of waterfall and you put a low shutter the water has a tendency to come out a looking like it was painted. I will hopefully get an image up here for that soon but I don't have any right now.

Now you can go out there and try out different settings and hopefully learn something about what shutters and f-stops do in conjunction with each other. Remember practice practice practice!