When outdoors, certainly while shooting animals, I prefer the auto-programs, you just do not have the time to adjust, adjust wrongly, try..., try..., try again... that usually happens when 'taking back control'. Of course, taking back control sounds great until you try it. Those auto-programs are not popular for no reason! For plants however I quit often use the 'P' type of programming.
If I take a lot of shots of different plants under different (light) conditions I often use a 'Av' (that is with fixed, so chosen by me), diaphragm and the camera computer will choose ISO and time. This allows me to pic a small diaphragm, so a deep depth/sharpness ratio. Otherwise, when shooting moving objects I do it vice versa and choose a short shutter time (Tv) and allow the camera to choose ISO and diaphragm. This allows for great sharpness of moving subjects.
But when at home I can take pictures with any experimental combination of settings: so I prefer 'P'. So I change white-balance, diaphragm, time, ISo etc to suit my subject. Of course I can use my tripod (for long shutter times) etc. Most of these pics are bad, or even terribly bad, but it produces also the best ones. In time I even begin to understand what I should choose to begin with, ..I might become a good photographer in time!
Ruud
