The Canon EOS Digital Rebel T1i/500D Companion

Chapter 6. Program Mode

TAKING CONTROL AND UNDERSTANDING MORE ABOUT EXPOSURE

So far, you’ve been using your camera in its fully automatic mode. In Full Auto mode, the camera makes all critical decisions for you. Program mode, on the other hand, provides a great balance of automatic and manual modes, letting you continue to shoot snapshot-style but with additional manual control when you need it. Because of this and because of the ease with which the T1i lets you take manual control when you need it, you’ll probably use Program mode more than any other mode on the camera.

However, no algorithm can know what’s right for every situation or know what your particular taste is. Some photographic situations require more complicated decision making than the camera can perform, and some pictures that you see in your head simply can’t be captured by the camera. They require additional image editing. For all these situations, you’ll need to take some additional control. In this chapter, we’ll explore all of the manual overrides available in Program mode, as well as some of the other creative choices you make when shooting.

Switching to Program Mode

In Chapter 1, I showed you the Mode dial, the dial on the right side of the top of the camera that you use to select a shooting mode. Each mode specifies a different set of parameters that the camera will handle automatically. For this chapter, change ...