Does Anyone Use Aperture Priority Mode?

[Symeon]

Using manual exposure on the M8 will speed up your shooting since you bypass the camera's metering job, but there will be errors, which of course are insignificant since you work with digital not film. However, you'll get to understand light better and after some time you will kind of revert to an old time M3 user. Finally, the M8 meter is not very accurate as it tends to overexpose. I also use manual WB settings for a similar reason.

 

[Symeon]

Sorry Nick, but priority means the camera follows what you set first on it and when you set an f-aperture value on your lens the A chooses and fits the appropriate shutter speed; this is called Aperture Priority Mode.

 

[oftheherd]

I don't own a Leica, much less an M8, but since others without Leicas have commented on non-Leicas and non-RF I will too.

My first SLR was a Yashica TL Super. Match needle metering. I found it inconvenient to move the shutter dial while I had the camera to my eye, so I usually set a shutter speed I thought I wanted, then adjusted the aperture. Of couse, that had the advantage of letting me see the dof I was getting too.

Then I got the Fujica ST 901. I opted for the aperture priority with the Fujica as much for cost as anything else. I fell in love with it. I didn't have to be concerned with the shutter speed, it adjusted for the aperture and I could see it in LEDs in the viewfinder. As I was also doing forensic photography, I found I could set the camera on a tripod, compose, and set the aperture for what I wanted in focus, and let the camera take as long an exposure as it needed. Always accurate. I've loved it ever since.

The only RF I have with AP is the Olympus XA. I like it there too. Well, actually, the Canonet QL III 17, but strangely, I usually use it in full auto.

 

[user237428934]

Using manual exposure on the M8 will speed up your shooting since you bypass the camera's metering job, but there will be errors, which of course are insignificant since you work with digital not film. However, you'll get to understand light better and after some time you will kind of revert to an old time M3 user. Finally, the M8 meter is not very accurate as it tends to overexpose. I also use manual WB settings for a similar reason.

You must have been born with a high speed ability like in the film "Wanted" if you notice a speed difference between manual mode and aperture priority mode.
You say that errors caused by manual settings are irrelevant because one is working digital. Then of course errors caused by the camera automatic are irrelevant too.

 

[jaapv]

Using manual exposure on the M8 will speed up your shooting since you bypass the camera's metering job, but there will be errors, which of course are insignificant since you work with digital not film. However, you'll get to understand light better and after some time you will kind of revert to an old time M3 user. Finally, the M8 meter is not very accurate as it tends to overexpose. I also use manual WB settings for a similar reason.

Not really, your meter switches on in manual as well, just like in AE. The milli-milli-micro second it takes to communicate its value to the shutter is not noticeable to non-bionic human beings.

 

[Hacker]

AE mode on the M8, M8.2 and the M9 99%. With RAW, there is so much latitude to adjust the exposure further during processing.

 

[yanidel]

AE 99% of time, except sometimes at night. So much faster and one less manipulations with my fingers.

Not Leica-like ? I am sure that if AE existed when the first camera was introduced, it would have had it. Sounds a bit like not wanting to use a computer because you are a good typer 😉

 

[ali_baba]

i use it all the time, but only on my digital bodies.
i check the frame and adjust the exposure accordingly.

no harm no foul.

 

[johannielscom]

Sorry Nick, but priority means the camera follows what you set first on it and when you set an f-aperture value on your lens the A chooses and fits the appropriate shutter speed; this is called Aperture Priority Mode.

Nick is correct though, Sara shoots a Canon QL17 GIII, where the A is for Automated.

Symeon, concerning the overexposure on the M8: it should. I find it suprising most people haven't got any idea why the scale on the M8 reads 160, 320, 640 and not 200, 400, 800.

It's good practise with film shooters to rate a 200ASA film at 160, a 400ASA film at 320, etc. When printing, you will have well light-saturated crystals on film and ditto pixels on the M8. When correcting for that over-exposure, you reduce grain in film, and noise in the M8 files.

When shooting the M8 at 160ISO, you are in fact exposing a 200ISO-set sensor.