"P" Mode

[kcody]

Okay, so I was on vacation last week, and I ran into some obvious better picture taking people than I, and they told me to alway shoot in "P" mode, well when I left them I changed my node to "P" and shot some pictures, WELL they all came out "White" obviously those people didn't give me all the information I needed. Please advise. I have a Nikon D60 and I've had it for almost 2 years and I still don't have the hang of it!
Wanna be Photographer

[rbickel]

When you take a picture, there are 3 main settings that come into play. The Shutter Apeture, the Shutter Speed and the ISO or sensitivity settings. When you use the automagic settings, the camera will adjust each of these settings to give the best exposure it can guess at. If you use sports mode, it will try to give a faster shutter speed to stop action, by increasing the apeture, and/or raising the ISO.

When you go into program mode. you have 3 choices. Apeture, shutter or full manual. In appeture you choose which appeture you wish, and the camera will choose the shutter speed and ISO needed to properly expose, or you choose the appeture and ISO and the camera will pick the shutter speed. Conversly, in shutter priority, you pick the shutter speed and the camera will adujst the other settings to match.

If you put the camera into full manual mode. then you need to set each settings. Usually there is an indicator in your view finder that lets you know if the in camera light meter thinks you will over or under expose the picture. At the most basic, you adjust your apeture/speed and ISO until the meter shows balanced.

If you do a search here, one book that constantly gets reccomended is "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson.

cheers.

[kencaleno]

Just read your manual

[Nicole]

I find the P mode to be the least intuitive mode on the camera (at least for getting the shot I want, but that's kind of beside the point).

In any case, P mode is basically automatic mode with the ability to make some changes. The camera picks what it thinks to be the appropriate shutter speed, aperture, and ISO for the scene. You can change this combination by using the control wheel on the back. The camera will then change the aperture and shutter speed so that you're still getting the same exposure. Basically, it will be longer shutter speeds with smaller apertures and shorter shutter speeds will use larger apertures. Smaller apertures mean that more of the scene will be in focus, larger ones, less (in general).

So, now that you hopefully understand a little better what P mode does, now you can look at what you can change and how it's useful. In P mode, you can change the ISO and change the exposure compensation (that's the little +/- button). You can also change your white balance.

Now, as to why your photos are coming out white, is it possible you turned the dial a whole lot of times to try to make it do something? If it's a really bright day and you're trying to shoot with the lens at it's widest aperture, your camera's maximum shutter speed might not be fast enough to cope with the amount of light that's there. Which isn't really a camera fault, it's just a mis-step with the settings you've picked.

I'd probably say try learning how to get better control of your camera using A or S modes. I find them to be more straightforward than P mode as long as you understand the impact of the one setting you're choosing.

[NaturalWoman]

sounds overexposed, but i don't know, can you upload an example?

with regard to well meaning people, and the same is true with investing money, never put your money in something you don't understand, you will lose it. same is true with photography. setting it on fully automatic - meaning all you do is compose and press the shutter would have yielded better results even if you knew absolutely nothing. sorry.

the manual is a good place to start and practice with your preferred shooting mode before taking it on vacation.