What’s “P” Mode?

“P” mode stands for “professional” mode! Just kidding but seriously a lot of professionals use P mode and so should you at least for awhile.

P mode is a lot like automatic mode with the exception that you get to choose when to use the flash. In other words in P mode the camera still sets the aperture (we’ll talk aperture later) and shutter speed (same thing for shutter speed) to get the “correct exposure” (we will talk about that now!).

When it comes to the “correct exposure” there isn’t one but a bunch of different combinations of aperture setting and shutter speed will all work depending on there being enough available light but will all end up creating a different look in your image.

I’m going to go into depth about this later but for the most part the lens on your camera can be set to let in a lot of light or very little light. Combine this with the shutter speed which can be set to remain open forever (not that you’d want to) to as fast as 1/1000th or 1/2000th or even faster on some cameras again allowing very little light to register on the camera’s sensor (or on the film frame in an old film camera).

What you end up with is a bunch of different exposures that will result in a “correct exposure”. But here’s where the creative aspect of photography starts to come into play.

You can pick one of these correct exposures to ensure that not only have you stopped the action of let’s say people walking (like in the photo above of Marion walking with Bill Smith who was leading a Toronto Film Shooters group photo walk) but there’s also sufficient depth of field (which is directly affected by the aperture you or your camera sets) to make for a pleasing photo.

You can also use different settings to increase or decrease the depth of field (what is or what is not in focus) or allow for a shutter speed that creatives blur of the walkers or is set to stop the motion of speeding train.

In P mode (actually called program mode) your camera, just like in automatic, sets itself up to take a properly exposed image (assuming there’s enough light) but unlike Automatic mode it will also allow you to move from one “correct exposure” of the combination of aperture and shutter speed to the next “correct exposure”.

This allows you to enjoy photography as the camera sets up the proper exposures and you can now manually move from one “correct exposure” to another depending on whether you want more or less depth of field (again how much or how little is in focus) and the corresponding correct shutter speed which can go from allowing a lot of blur to stopping all action.