shutter or aperture priority

[JimKosinski]

Like Chris I shoot AP keeping an eye on the shutter speed to make sure its where I want it depending upon what I am shooting.

[Marc]

well, looks like aperture priority, i would prefer shutter for moving sports, high shutter speed guarantees large aperture, and adjust iso to keep the look you want.

i just can't imagine allowing the aperture to control the camera, when movement is invoved and you want sharp picture.
am i really getting this backwards?

marc

[Chris_Lax]

Marc,
As I stated previously I use AP mainly, my reasoning being that DOF is more important for me than shutter speed, basically any shutter speed over 1/800 will pretty much freeze the horse (indoors 1/300 will have to do at times). So it doesn't matter to me if my shutter speed is 1/800 or 1/8000th.
Hope that makes sense - I've just woken up!
Chris

[LarryRyder]

It does sound backward but it works. Lets say you are in shutter mode and you choose a shutter speed that gives a aperture of 2.8 and a cloud comes over and you lose 2 stops of light, your image is severely underexposed and unusable. If in aperture mode and you choose 2.8 lets say it gives you 1/1000, the same cloud comes by and it drops to 1/250 which may not be ideal but will probably still be usable and you have a nice blurred background all the time.

If you stay at your maximum aperture all the time your shutter will always be as high as possible for the chosen ISO

If you use shutter priority and set a shutter speed that gives a mid range aperture then you would be ok on exposure if you don't mind the typical background clutter being crisp.

[AllanSchroeder]

Let's look at it another way.

You are shooting shutter priority, 1/500 for example. It's a cloudy day, so you're shooting at f/2.8 or so. Nice OOF backgrounds, all of a sudden, sun comes out, you're shooting at f/11. no more nice OOF backgrounds.

With AP, you still need to keep an eye on the shutter speed, but I would rather have control over my DOF, than an exact shutter speed.

[Marc]

well, that does make sense, thanks to all of you for responding

marc

[Bob_Harrington]

I use shutter priority exclusivly because I want to control the feeling of speed in the photos. Since we now have the option of posting photos I'll have a try at an example from last weekend
Bob H