Survey

[Tom Gerrard]

Hi,

These are not the final results of the survey, but I think they give a clear indication of what they will be. No surprises for me in the first one. In the second, the results about Manual and Shutter Priority raised an eyebrow a little. I wondered if you have any thoughts.

[Paul Jones]

Do you shoot in RAW?
YES, always

What mode do you shoot in most?
MANUAL

What survey was it, Tom?

Why would the use of Manual and Shutter Priority raise eyebrows? Perhaps it depends on who completed the survey, eg sports photographers often prefer shutter priority, studio photographers work in manual ...

[Tom Gerrard]

Hi Paul,

I am not sure where I saw the survey, I was just surfing from one photography site to another. I know one shouldn't, but from the results, I assumed that it was answered by a cross section of photographers. What I didn't assume was that many more studio photographers than sports photographers answered the questions. The Aperture Priority or Manual Mode result did not surprise me, it was the low number who used the Shutter Priority that did.

The number of people who used the Scene mode function interested me. I'm not sure if I've ever used these functions. Am I missing something? Only 568 out of 13200 seem to think so. All manufacturers obviously do their research and seem to think it is a feature that we want and helps to sell their product, I wonder. I'm curious to know if any of our members use the these functions and find them better, more convenient than other modes.

I am fully aware that results from surveys can be wildly innaccurate, depending how questions are asked, truthful and randomized responses, hidden logit and the procedures used to estimate it etc, etc, but I would be interested to find out which shooting mode our members favour, which they don't and if their answers were very much different from this 'survey'.

Regards, Tom.

[John]

The main problem with online surveys is that they are self selecting, so they are hardly representative. They summarise the opinions of people who surf the net and stop to answwer surveys.

A really good example of this was an online survey asking which DSLRs were the best of 2008. This got hijacked by a group of Pentax users who rallied th web to say "Pentax K20D" and withing a week or so that was the clear winner, getting about double the points of the poor second place. Totally unhelpful.....no, it was nothing to do with me.

[Paul Jones]

...it was the low number who used the Shutter Priority that did...

Come to think of it, apart from sport, there are other times when some people might choose SP, eg:

slow - a waterfall shot to make the water go 'milky'
slow - adding deliberate blur effects
fast - freezing any kind of action/movement

The number of people who used the Scene mode function interested me. I'm not sure if I've ever used these functions. Am I missing something?

I've never had a camera that had these on.
Was the survey limited to DSLR users or did it include compacts too?


Another interesting point. If you assume that, for the sake of argument, Program Mode and Automatic Mode are essentially the same, then 29% of users most often choose to let the camera decide.


You haven't said what mode you prefer to use?

[PhilipHowe]

RAW and Av mode personally.
When that doesn't 'work', then I go manual (and usually forget to change the ISO setting down , low light etc).

[Tracey McGovern]

Hi
I always shoot in RAW. Use mostly Av but sometimes use Tv when shooting in low light or waterfalls. If I'm struggling to get the results I need then I'll have a bash with manual, but this is usually trial and error until I get the shot I'm looking for. I used to use P when I first got my DSLR but soon got that knocked out of me when I joined the club I never use the scene modes.
Tracey

[keith richardson]

Hi,
I always shoot in RAW, and usually, because of the shots I tend to do, I shoot in Manual mode. But when taking 'straight' shots ( off the tripod ),I tend to use P mode but with my own pre set settings, not the one the camera chooses. I have used Auto mode but find that this camera tends to go for the higher end ASA speeds, so creates a problem with excessive noise.
I have never used and can't ever see me using the scene modes, if you are doing that you may as well get a point and shoot.

regards, keith.

[ColiNfr]

I shoot Jpeg when its for fun, ie walking around and snapping anything, i need the room. i use RAW for weddings and studio shoots. Or if i know its going to be a photo i will want to work with alot in PS. Jpeg for pleasure, Raw for work.

As for mode, depends what im doing. Studio is manual as i need the flash to work. Outside walking, automatic. Sports ill go with the mode where i can pick the shutter speed. I have no prefernce, i just go with my instinct and pick the one for the job, but i always start on auto. Then again the S5 is dam good on auto.

ColiNfr.