Beginner - When and how to use Tv & Av?

[slowmail]

Hey there,

I'm terribly new to photography, and picked up a Canon A95 about 2 months back. Been quite happy with it on the whole, shooting mainly in just 'Auto' mode.

Would like to know more about the Aperture Priority (Av) and Shutter Priority (Tv) modes on my camera. What are they, and when and where and how do I use them? How do they affect the picture and stuff like that

Eventually would like to venture into using the full Manual mode (M) found on this camera to take better pictures.

Links to tutorials or stuff like that online would be good. =D

Thanks!

 

[Marmbo]

I'm still pretty new and learning as well.
The two modes are semi-automatic.

Aperture Priority (Av) - Basically, you would use this mode to set the exact aperture you want. The camera will then change other settings such as shutter time to try to ensure proper exposure of the image.

Shutter Priority (Tv) - This allows you to specify exactly how long you would like the shutter to be open for. The camera again will do its best to obtain correct exposure if possible by changing other values.

I'm sure someone will post more information on this, but generally if you want to have a small DOF for example, you could use Av mode and set the lens as wide open as you wanted. Or if you wanted to take a picture of flowing water and have it captured over a longer duration to get that more flowing silky look, you could use Tv Mode. Set it for a longer shutter time and the camera will likely close up the aperture to try to ensure correct results. That's the way I understand it so far anyways. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[maddog]

use shutter priority to freeze action, e.g. sports photography. set a high shutter speed like 1/250 or more and let the camera adjust aperture. You probably need a high performance lens and strong lighting to pull this off as aperture will be wide open.

use aperture priority when taking still objects, e.g. flowers when you want to control depth of field. Increasing your aperture makes the depth of field shallow meaning your main subject is in focus and background is blurred.

 

[Waffle]

nice tips. wasn't really sure how these 2 modes on my A75 actually work too, thanks.

 

[photo2k]

Hi,

This is a very goodd site for beginners to understand the functionality of your camera. I find it very useful for me to understand different modes of operation.

http://www.shortcourses.com/using/cameracontrols/chapter1.htm

Cheers