Read any good photography tutorial—including all the ones on this site—and you’ll see one bit of advice repeated over and over again: shoot using Aperture Priority mode. So, why do so many professional photographers love Aperture Priority? What makes it so good? Let’s find out.
Aperture Priority mode (Av or A on the mode dial) is one of the two semi-automatic modes your camera has. The other is Shutter Speed Priority (Tv or S on the mode dial). In Aperture Priority mode, you set the aperture and ISO while your camera automatically sets the shutter speed based on its light meter reading. In Shutter Speed Priority mode, you set the shutter speed and ISO, your camera sets the aperture.
With Aperture Priority mode, you don’t give up control over how your images look. If your camera is picking a shutter speed that overexposes or underexposes the scene, you use exposure compensation to adjust it without having to worry about selecting an exact shutter speed.
RELATED: What Are the Different Metering Modes on My Camera And When Should I Use Them?
Now, let’s look at why it’s great.
Aperture Controls How Things Look
Aperture is one of the most important factors in how things appear in your images since it’s what controls the depth of field. If you use a wide aperture, like f/1.8, you’ll have a narrow depth of field with only a small area of the image in focus and a nice blurry background.
On the other hand, if you use a narrow aperture like f/16, you’ll have a really wide depth of field with almost everything sharp.
Read the remaining 13 paragraphs
Source: How-To Geek
