Who wants a smarter P mode?

sevencrossing

I like the "P" mode - every once in awhile I hand the camera off to a friend.

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This surely, is exactly what P mode is for and very useful is it is too

TaoTeJared

@John - P mode does everything that you keep describing except one thing:

- The camera AI determines that you're probably photographing a landscape and so assumes that you probably want to have everything sharp.

And actually, most of what you are describing actually already happens - but that depends on all the rest of the "auto" options and "chosen" options you have selected.

With me, playing around, If I choose the 51-point Auto-AF, it does push it to a higher aperture if the shutter speed is equal-double to the lens for a landscape photo. It already does know it is looking at a landscape vs a portrait. If I select a single point closer to the camera than the background, the aperture opens up to bokeh out the background.

I think P is much smarter than what you understand and way beyond what Thom speaks too. There is much more thinking going on in the background. The problem is, I'm not sure if anyone has ever published how all the options work together.

bland

Although I agree pretty much with everyone I'm going to play the devils advocate.

Most everyone posting their thoughts on this are pro photographers or the equivalent of one. What about the person getting their first DSLR? P mode shoots great and it gives them the opportunity to learn the functionality of auto focus modes, metering, ISO, WB and etc without compounding their learning experience with speed and exposure. Once they get the above mentioned figured out, they can then move on to S and A modes.

I think I'm the only one that has mentioned the P modes great ability in using a speedlight. On my D90 it didn't work that will when using a speedlight but with my D7000 and D800 it gives incredible results on each and every picture I take that way. It's perfect for shooting indoor family events and etc without any worries.

I know pro photographers who are shooting weddings in P mode with a speedlight and then post editing for the effects and the pictures are great. I have a friend who shoots stock car racing at night and uses the same method, great pictures again.

I shot my grandchildrens birthday party last weekend and every shot came out great, here's one of them.



P mode is what it is but it's not a bad thing.

Golf007sd

@bland:

I'm...play(ing) the devils advocate....P mode shoots great and it gives them the opportunity to learn the functionality of auto focus modes, metering, ISO, WB and etc without compounding their learning experience with speed and exposure....

In that light, many of us have stated that the P-Mode thus turns the D-SLR in to a point-and-shot.

Ironheart

I always thought it stood for Praynspray @spranpray. Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

TaoTeJared

"P" certainly has it's uses. Last wedding I shot, most of the after party "snaps of family" around tables was best done with 51point AF and on P. All the persons were in focus, something that would be hard to know the correct aperture when people gather around 10 foot tables. There was no way I could know if the person on the left and right sides of the table were in focus at f/3.5 or f/8 - the camera did though - and did it really well. There are times when a camera does think faster and better than most.

spraynpray

I always thought it stood for Praynspray @spranpray. Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

LOL!

Godless

I can think of a "P" mode which could be varied as to different scenes...e.g., action, theatre, landscape, etc.

The cheaper Nikons already have that, and it´s called Scene in the dial...

Msmoto

@Godless

I was referring to this in an indirect way... )

JJ_SO

"P" certainly has it's uses. Last wedding I shot, most of the after party "snaps of family" around tables was best done with 51point AF and on P. All the persons were in focus, something that would be hard to know the correct aperture when people gather around 10 foot tables. There was no way I could know if the person on the left and right sides of the table were in focus at f/3.5 or f/8 - the camera did though - and did it really well. There are times when a camera does think faster and better than most.

Tank you very much for that idea! This is really something cool to try, never did that before.

Ade

Um, there is no "magic" to P-mode.

The P-mode doesn't know if anyone would be "in focus" at f/3.5 or f/8. Nor does it care.

P-mode selects an exposure based only on the amount of light available at the ISO setting. For a brighter scene, it selects a faster shutter-speed and a smaller aperture. With less available light, it selects a slower shutter-speed and a larger aperture. That is all.

So when you have people gather around tables, P-mode might equally chose f/3.5 or f/8. Or any other aperture setting; It only depends on how well the room was lit. Whether or not anyone gets to be in focus would purely be coincidental.

If you want to have everyone in focus, just stop down the aperture (and maybe throw in Auto-ISO for good measure.) Using P-mode would be a gamble.

TaoTeJared

Sorry Ade, that is not true. D800 does it - and I use it alot.

I just can't recall if my D300 does or not. Anymore I just put the 35mm or 85mm on it, shoot single focus on "A" at F2 @ iso 800 in B&W only now.

Ade

No, the D800 P-mode works exactly as I've described.

This is the P-mode chart for the D800 at ISO 100:


(from the Nikon D800/D800E User's Manual)

E.g., with a measured exposure of EV 6, P-mode simply follows the chart and sets the camera to 1/15th and f/2 (lens permitting). At EV 12, the exposure follows the chart to 1/125 at f/5.6, and so on.

P-mode does not try to determine if any subject would be in focus, etc. It simply follows the programmed chart.

With a flash engaged, the D800 P-mode behavior is even simpler: the shutter is set to setting "e2 Flash shutter speed" (1/60 by default) and the aperture is fixed according to the ISO setting and flash type (e.g., f/4 at ISO 100 w/ external flash).

One can easily test that the P-mode follows the above chart by comparing the exposure setting to a light meter in EV mode.

JJ_SO

Ade, although a manual should contain all necessary and important information, there will be as well undocumented functions what you don't find in a manual. This goes for each product.

AF-C + automatic focus detection has preference to faces. I could think of a clever algorithm to try to get enough DOF, I also could think, it just did fit in TTJ's pictures. Try to find out for yourself.

TaoTeJared

Ade do you have a D800 to try it with?

There is a lot more that "P" and metering does than what is on the chart when in matrix metering. What you posted is what has been used for center weighted metering for the last 50 years. Advances have been made.

Golf007sd

I will stand by TTJ experience, knowledge base and usage of the D800 any day of the week and twice on Sunday vs any chart put on paper. You are welcome to call me foolish but I'm willing to put money on the line to prove you point and your miscalculation. :P

Ade

I use my D800e professionally.

Test your P-mode yourself. Grab your light meter, measure EV, set camera to P-more and see that the result conform exactly to the chart I posted above (assuming your light meter is calibrated to the camera's).

Attach a flash (or pop-up the built-in flash) and see that the exposure remains at 1/60 and a specific f-stop (depending on your flash) no matter where/what you point your camera at. Near subject, far subjects, a group of subjects, it doesn't matter. (Obviously assuming little or no ambient light to affect exposure, such as indoors).

If as you say you use the P-mode "a lot" then you may want to learn how it actually works.

Also "center weighed metering" is completely irrelevant. Metering in any mode (spot, center, matrix) measures the EV. Then P-mode takes whatever EV was measured and translates it into an exposure setting according to the chart above.

And to JJ_SO, "face detection" is similarly irrelevant. Easy to test. Set a D800 to P-mode. Point it to a person, or a group of people, or boxes, or plates, or trees. You will find the subject does not matter. For the same lighting condition, the same exposure setting will be used. Face detection can aid the camera to decide where to meter, but for the same resulting EV it will always select the same shutter/aperture combination per the above chart (all else being equal).

Again, if you don't believe me, test it yourself. It's not rocket science.

Ade

I will stand by TTJ experience, knowledge base and usage of the D800 any day of the week and twice on Sunday vs any chart put on paper. You are welcome to call me foolish but I'm willing to put money on the line to prove you point and your miscalculation. :P

Let's wager $3000, the cost of a D800?

Golf007sd

@Ade: I trust my skills (and TTJ's and many others...you included) in understanding ISO, shutter speed and aperture far more than P-Mode. For me it all comes down to the final result of taking a shot I have imagined. P-Mode does not know this and thus cannot obtain the result I'm seeking in setting up the camera in the proper setting it needs to be at. Hence, P-model only cares about the "amount of light available at the ISO setting." Moreover, it does not even care "if any subject [is] in focus." Thus, from my perspective is for the: lazy shooter at the moment, and not for those of us that have considered getting a D-SLR to have controle of the shot being taken in the first place. Yet, as I have said, to each his own. I just simply pass on this feature on my cameras.

With respect to the chart, I understand it and now I have a better understanding of how P-Mode follows it...thanks for sharing it with us.

As for my bet, I hope for your sake P-mode those guess the right setting on your D800 in what my intention are in taking a picture...if not well buddy you are welcome to borrow your camera from me...I just might have you keep it too...if the drink you buy me is worth drinking :P

Correlli

I agree with Ade here. P mode is a simple lookup what f-stop and aperture to use with what measured EV. This is independent of the metering mode (matrix, center or spot). In a given scene different metering modes might result in different exposure values (this is where matrix metering has come a long way compared to center or spot). But for a given EV the camera will always select the same aperture-exposure time combination.

The main differences as far as I understood between P mode and the auto mode on consumer cameras is, that in P mode you can still override the suggested combination (this is called program shift) which you cannot do in auto mode and auto mode also includes ISO automatic (which is optional in P mode).

The scene modes are basically auto modes with shifted program curves (like the P mode curve Ade has shown above).

The intelligent P mode that the OP suggested would be - at least for me - that the camera combines all informations it has (focus distance, exposure value, face recognition etc) to find out what scene mode to select.

JJ_SO

And to JJ_SO, "face detection" is similarly irrelevant. Easy to test. Set a D800 to P-mode. Point it to a person, or a group of people, or boxes, or plates, or trees. You will find the subject does not matter. For the same lighting condition, the same exposure setting will be used. Face detection can aid the camera to decide where to meter, but for the same resulting EV it will always select the same shutter/aperture combination per the above chart (all else being equal).

Then it's a bit difficult to test - if the person is away, the metering will change, therefore shutterspeed and aperture, too. I'm still curious and can't test, my D800 is at Nikon's repair center. It might be coincidence that TTJs shots got the right DOF or a hidden function - as I said, I want to try it.

spraynpray

Up front I own up to not using P mode, but I thought I read that you control the exposure with the command dial in so far as you move it from faster/shallower to slower/deeper? I don't know how ISO fits in there (or auto ISO) though. I've not read anything about face recognition being factored into the mix, but if it were, I would have expected it to go shallower/faster for portraits not slower/deeper. But come to think of it the processor already knows what lens is on the body so DoF calcs could be done so the settings chosen could be made to be dependant on the metering mode selected I suppose.

I'm just ramblin' on....

Let's face it, these days such a system would be easy to come up with and there is plenty of processing power in our cameras to cope with it.

Ade

@Correlli,

The "intelligent P" mode as you describe is actually how Auto mode works in modern consumer (P&S) cameras.

Nikon calls it "Easy Auto". Canon calls it "Smart Auto". Lumix calls it "Intelligent Auto". But all of them essentially work by using various information -- base exposure, focal length, focus point, face detection, shake detection, etc. -- to select one of the built-in scenes. The Sony version is even called "Intelligent Scene Recognition" mode (iSCN).

Some auto mode exposures can still be overridden by the user, like P-mode. E.g., the Lumix iA Plus mode lets users override the exposure, the aperture, or the white balance.

@JJ_SO:

It's actually easy to test. Especially in a setting like TTJ first mentioned (wedding reception, likely indoors and probably with flash). In that scenario the exposure setting P-mode selects is pretty much static regardless of subject / distance / lighting condition. Probably 1/60th at f/4 or f/5 if you have a Nikon Speedlight attached.

For good measure I just checked Thom Hogan's excellent D800 guidebook, and his description of the D800 P-mode (page 298) is the same as mine above. Instead of a chart he includes an easy to read table showing EV values against the fixed shutter/aperture combinations. I highly recommend Thom's guidebook if you don't have it yet.

@spraynpray:

Yes you can override the P-mode selection, but it can be confusing to use because the way the override is "sticky" between shots. It's up to you to check before each shot if the override amount is still appropriate.

Easier to just use A or S mode instead.

TaoTeJared

Ade no one is questioning you about the exposure settings and how that works - So you can lose that part.

If you throw the camera in 3D tracking or the auto 51-point AF, the camera does select focus points and from my experience, it does grab prominent subjects. It is not face detection (Live View has that) but when you have front subjects and back subjects, it will grab the front ones and usually quite well (90-95% of the time). I was playing with it today and with my D300 side by side, and there is something very new in the D800 (probably all the other bodies) where it is tremendously better at grabbing stuff that "you want/intend to capture."

JJ_SO

@TaoTeJared: Page 94 of the manual states:

"Auto-area AF: The camera automatically detects the subject and selects the focus point; if a face is detected, the camera will give priority to the portrait subject. The active focus points are highlighted briefly after the camera focuses; in AF-C mode, the main focus point remains highlighted after the other focus points have turned off."

They don't use the term "face recognition", but it's working in normal view as well. LiveView just has an additonal Portrait AF mode. Now, if I'd focus a person who's just in hyperfocal distance and using a wideangle lens/zoom which doesn't have f/1.4 but maybe f/2.8 or less open aperture it might happen that the camera choses accidentally a suiting aperture.

To calculate DOF, the cam would have to focus to each subject separately and continuously. I never saw that happen but the impact of a DOF automatic would be huge: Focus-stacks out of the cam, pointing to closest and farest points and getting a suiting aperture back - wow.