how long till it clicks
 

I have owned my first (digital) SLR camera for about a year now, it's a fantastic camera and I love using it. Up until I bought it every camera I'd used was a point & shot job, bugger all thought involved in taking pictures. I'm finding that I use the auto camera settings a lot. I've done one short photography course and read a few books, with lots of jargon that I'd never heard before. I take some good shots, but am still quite the novice. I have to make a real concious effort to use the manual camera settings and sometimes the results are variable. I like photographing birds and other wildlife, and find that when shooting an exciting subject the auto settings are easier. Is this cheating, or is it part of the learning curve. How long does it take for it to 'click' for you and it all to become second nature - or is it like this for everyone?
Rach

Personally, for birds and general stuff, I tend to leave the camera in P mode and adjust exposure by using exposure compensation as necessary. I just keep an eye on the shutter speed - when there's plenty of light I might swap to AP to try and get a bit more DOF. I seem to remember many years ago struggling with shutter and aperture combinations when I first got a film SLR and it did suddenly click into place.
No need to make things over complicated though. A friend of mine has a friend who was a professional photographer for many years and very well known in her field. She now just takes photos for herself and my friend, with new DSLR in hand, stood beside her as she prepared to take few frames. Wanting some expert advice from one of the old school, my friend asked what settings she was using. She was met with a puzzled look and the reply 'I'm using programme of course'!

Rachael,

It's not cheating, as long as you understand what the camera is doing, and know what the effect of using the camera's chosen settings are going to be. You say you've done a course, and read some books, so I expect you know what is going to be the result of using different shutter speeds and lens apertures. As long as you know what's going to happen, and you are happy with the settings chosen, it doesn't matter if you dialled them in, or the camera picked them.

I use fully program mode on my camera almost exclusively, but I also make extensive use of the program shift feature to make sure I'm using the setting I want to to achieve the result I'm after. As I explained in this thread:
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...read.php?t=125
There's a whole host of different ways to get the exposure right for any given lighting conditions. As long as you understand the impact of the settings used, feel free to use any way you like to achieve them.

If you don't feel like using all the different modes on your camera, try using the program shift feature first. As an exercise, why not stick your camera on a tripod, point it at a tree in the garden (if you have one), and take a variety of near identical pictures, but vary the program shift. Look at the results and evaluate the differences between the pictures.

As another experiment, put your camera on a tripod again and take pictures of cars driving down the road. Again, use the program shift and study the results. As long as you understand the impact of the settings used, it's not a cheat to let the camera pick them.

You may find the other stickies here:
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...isplay.php?f=6
useful.

Regards,

Duncan

Thanks Greypoint & Duncan.
You've given me a lot of great advice, I will have to get out there and do some experimenting now!
Rach