Olympus E-3 User Manual page 46

Now, hands-up all those professionals who religiously consider
every one of those aspects before
determine a setting for the camera?
frame
– even those 3 in the middle of a burst of 15 at 5 frames
per second?
Mmm... Perhaps the P mode is a lot more involved than one
thinks at first. Even the most experienced professional in the
world cannot respond to every subtle change in exposure, lens
focal length, flash angle and other parameters with every single
shot. To have some technical assistance with the mathematics
while you concentrate on the moment and composition of the
photograph should be viewed a welcome sharing of the technical
load.
The reason why many professionals have derided programme
modes, however, is not hard to find. Early programme modes
were rather inflexible and the look-up tables used were fairly
basic in scope. The cameras merely measured the overall
exposure value and chose an aperture/shutter speed combination
from a 45 degree graphical scale. This was not conducive to
ensuring soft focus behind a super-model!
Luckily, however, the E-3 has a programme mode designed to
relieve you of the drudgery but still permit you full creative
control of your image.
When set to normal P mode, the camera will do a very good job
of producing perfectly exposed images. As you increase the focal
length of the lens in use (or zoom) the camera will choose a
higher shutter speed and a wider aperture as a matter of course.
As the angle of the lens widens, smaller apertures and lower
speeds will be used.
every
shot in order to
Really? every single
For
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