[Cuchulainn]

I use the following when shooting:

Program Mode for Urban Shooting. Travel, City Life, Street shots. The shot you are looking for might be there the instant you turn a corner or walk down an alley. Program Mode is awesome when you have no time to fidget with settings. You get the shot or you don't.

Aperture Mode: Great for landscapes. Lets you control depth of field. Provides artistic creativity in how you want to present your subject.

Shutter Priority: I often use this for sports where I want to maintain a certain shutter speed such as 1/125.

Manual Mode: When you have the time to tweak everything to perfection you can't beat manual mode. I definitely prefer this mode for portraits and product shots.

Personally I find that no single mode is best suited for all tasks. You can only benefit from spending time learning how to use each one and recognizing when the situation calls for one one over the other. If camera manufacturers thought the world could get along with either full auto or manual thats all they would include.

Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority are *not* dummy modes designed for people who don't know how to use manual mode. Thats what "scene modes" like sports, night etc. are for. Even Pro cameras that lose "scene" modes hold onto Program, Aperture, Shutter and Manual Modes.

They are *all* very useful tools in the toolbox.