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As I am a long time point and shoot pic taker and want to get away from this, I am trying to work out if it is better to use the aperture or shutter priority setting for taking photos. Have done a basic camera course and understand (sort of) how each works but don't know which is better or easier to master for a start. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Linda

Nikon D80, 18-55 & 70-300 lens

Hi Linda,
Deciding which one to use depends on what sort of photos you are taking.
For example if you are shooting a moving object and you don't want it to be blurred, ie freeze the subject, then it's better to use speed priority to make sure that the camera fires at a high enough shutter speed. If on the other hand you are shooting a portrait and you want an out of focus background, you would choose aperture priority to make sure that the lens stays fairly wide open.

Hi linda,

What Phillip said, but start off using aperture mode, and a value of around f/8 or f/11.

If you see your shutters speeds getting too slow (1/30, 1/15 etc) then open the aperture (f/5.6, f/4) to let more light in and bring the shutter speed back up.

Phillip is pretty much right on the money here.

Depending on what you are shooting, you will more often than not need to control either of aperture or shutter speed, and let the camera take care of the other to get your exposure right.

Most of the time, I will use aperture priority, set at a "safe" value of between 5.6 and 8. I keep an eye on the shutter speed and open up the aperture or bump up the iso if it starts to dip under 1/f. If I want to take a portrait shot or minimise my depth of field, I will open the aperture up and let the camera deal with the shutter speed.

If shutter speed becomes my primary concern, then I will use shutter priority... For example if I am shooting sports, I know I want it very fast, so I will set it accordingly and let the camera adjust the aperture.

If I'm going to be using flash or taking a long exposure on a tripod, I will probably have it on manual.

In fact, even when you are using manual, you will probably use it very similarly to A or S modes. ie: you set one of them to what you want, then you adjust the other until your exposure is right. The only difference is that in A or S mode, the camera does that second part for you automatically.

Linda,

Best of all, it costs you nothing to experiment (other than charging the battery and a bit of disk space on the images).

Go out into the backyard (or front yard or local park, etc.) and see the effects of small apertures, large apertures, fast shutter speeds and slow shutter speeds. Get a copy of Nikon ViewNX or similar (something that will tell you the camera settings of each shot) and look at each image carefully to see the differences. For the shutter speed comparisons, look at the images at 100% so you can see any camera movement.

It is best to experiment on things that don't matter so that when you are in a position to photograph something important, you know what will work to get the image you want.

Of course, above all, have fun.

Thanks for the tips everyone - will go out this arvo and have a play.

Linda