How useful is Av/Tv/Manual for P/S (SD vs A series)?

I've had a DSLR for a year and a half now, so I understand the advantages that these modes offer, but how often do you guys actually use these modes on point and shoots?

I can't decide whether I should go for an Powershot A series (or the SX100) or the SD series. The A series has the manual controls, and the SD series is more compact. I figure I can stand the larger A series size if the manual controls come in handy once in a while.

Also, what's the general consensus about AA batteries in the A series vs the Li-ion in SD series? I own a 430EX flash, I'm already packing quite a few AAs.

I have played with a few A series, never messed with the SX100 or the SD, 100 looks entertaining, whatever you go with make sure you get IS (Image Stab)

I personally use AV mode exclusively for portraits and macros on my A720Is and I feel it is a really handy feature. Haven't found the need yet for TV and M, but with a trip coming next week I guess it would come in handy while shooting photographs of a waterfall or a stream.

i wish i could have AV or full manual on my sd850IS.. all that auto stuff is annoying!!

I use it once in a while to see if the camera does something different, but mostly I like to set my camera manually. If that's not available, I feel like I am being cheated.

For me, I've found it unnecessary. Coming also from a dSLR background, the DOF control is much weaker on the smaller-sensored P&S cameras. F/2.8 acts more like f/5.6-6.3 on a dSLR, so you often have to go quite out of your way to nail that narrow DOF. I skipped around from higher end A-series to the Sx-IS to a G9 and finally settled on a Auto-shoot SD/IXUS. For me, point and shoot in the Big Green Mode is good enough for me on a small compact.

I have an A640, I find I use Manual mode the most, but on the odd occasion I have found uses for Tv & Av, though rarely P... probably once at most.

What is very important is to have a P&S that allows you to dial in exposure compensation very easily. P&S are no better at metering a scene correctly in auto mode than dSLRs are. A good manual mode + histrogram is the next best thing if you cannot get E.C.

Control of the aperture directly isn't of much use as the DOF will be pretty much infinite in any case.

Speedy ISO adjustment is also pretty useless since the noise typically gets so bad so fast.

JeffreyG, Collin85

That's what I figured. The DOF is seems like it's going to be almost infinite in almost all cases, so aperture control doesn't seem as useful. And these days all cameras come with some sort of night portrait mode for dragging the shutter.

I find myself using EC on my DSLR often rather than full manual. How do the EC controls on an A-series compare to SD? On my Rebel XTi, it's cake, but I suspect on a P&S it takes a few more button presses.

Lidor7 wrote in post #5894522
I've had a DSLR for a year and a half now, so I understand the advantages that these modes offer, but how often do you guys actually use these modes on point and shoots?

I can't decide whether I should go for an Powershot A series (or the SX100) or the SD series. The A series has the manual controls, and the SD series is more compact. I figure I can stand the larger A series size if the manual controls come in handy once in a while.

Also, what's the general consensus about AA batteries in the A series vs the Li-ion in SD series? I own a 430EX flash, I'm already packing quite a few AAs.

I shoot mainly with my SLR, I almost never take out my Pro1 point and shoot. But settings are settings no matter which camera format you're using so I think SLR users settings would still be relevant here.

For my own usage there's a lot of stuff that I shoot in M mode and I'll use the Av and Tv modes sort of like an alternative custom function so that I don't have to reset my M mode settings for something that isn't my main subject that I'll be shooting all day. So for example... I shot an airshow over the weekend and had my M mode dialed in to just what I wanted for planes in flight. I found however that there were times that I wanted to have a Tv mode setup so that when the prop planes were taxiing I could still get a slow enough shutter speed that I wasn't freezing the props on the plane. For this I had Tv set up to 1/400th.

I also wanted to shoot shots of the crowd at times or something else that was static. If my M mode settings weren't the right ones for the shot, or if I wanted to control background blur specifically, I'd switch to Av mode and make any adjustments that I wanted. All in all this left my M mode alone so that I could be comfortable that I was dialed in for my main subject without constantly having to change my settings there. If I were shooting in a constantly varying lighting conditions, where I knew that I wasn't at risk of not having enough light for shutter speed I'd probably use Av mode mostly and use M mode occasionally if there were exposure problems etc.

Most of the time I don't use Tv mode anymore, but if I was too lazy to adjust my M mode, then I'd use Tv mode to insure that I never dropped below my minimum camera shake speed for handholding that I was comfortable with. If I had an occasional exposure where the camera was fooled, at least I still got some pictures that I could work with instead of taking none because I didn't want to fuss with M mode.

P mode is good if you're using flash and being lazy. The camera will make okay decisions with that I hear, but will have some failures too. You may need to be set to evaluative metering or something special for this to work fully. Without flash I have to be careful in P mode not to have the shutter speed drop so low that I have problems with camera shake. For that reason I'll never use it in low light unless it's with flash on. It's sort of an okay general beginners mode where you can and must adjust exposure compensations yourself. It's also the closest entry level creative mode to full auto that allows you to shoot RAW files I believe. It's okay for well lit areas or if you're using a tripod/monopod or flash, but usually I want to have more control over either my shutter speed or aperture so I almost never use it. I'm currently using it for flash from time to time though as I'm trying to get sufficient experience with my 550EX and learning all the flash techniques.

Lidor7 wrote in post #5962046
JeffreyG, Collin85

That's what I figured. The DOF is seems like it's going to be almost infinite in almost all cases, so aperture control doesn't seem as useful. And these days all cameras come with some sort of night portrait mode for dragging the shutter.

I find myself using EC on my DSLR often rather than full manual. How do the EC controls on an A-series compare to SD? On my Rebel XTi, it's cake, but I suspect on a P&S it takes a few more button presses.

I'm in the same boat..lol!
I'm leaning towards the SX100 for the 36-360mm,f/2.8-4.3 lens, it has IS, and feedback seems positive never really owned A-series and have had lots of SD series which are very compelling for mainly their size! They do take acceptable/Basic photographs but seem to crap out on zoom and ISO IQ quickly
So that's why I lean towards the SX100 which by the way seems small enough to carry in your pocket or whatnot....

Lidor7 wrote in post #5962046
JeffreyG, Collin85

That's what I figured. The DOF is seems like it's going to be almost infinite in almost all cases, so aperture control doesn't seem as useful. And these days all cameras come with some sort of night portrait mode for dragging the shutter.

I find myself using EC on my DSLR often rather than full manual. How do the EC controls on an A-series compare to SD? On my Rebel XTi, it's cake, but I suspect on a P&S it takes a few more button presses.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with my Auto shooter P&S - but I should mention one caveat which should have gone with my previous post. DOF control is certainly much more of a nuissance on a digital compact, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. If I was forced to do away with all my dSLR bodies and lenses, I'd be confident I could get many of the shots I usually would with my dSLRs on a digital compact - just that it would require more preparation, work and post-process. So it was this which pretty much turned me off for trying for greatness whenever I had a P&S. In other words, if I knew I was going somewhere where I was to run into great photographic opportunities, I would almost certainly bring my dSLRs. So stuck with this predisposition, whenever I needed a P&S, it was always because I wanted to get a quick snapshot. So in conclusion, I personally abandoned control-heavy P&S's like the G9 and Sx-IS NOT because it was impossible to get great shots with them, but because I realized that whenever I brought a P&S, I only needed it for snapshots (which of course was motivated the inadequacies such as DOF control). Hence, I only really needed Auto mode - so I did away with all those higher-end P&S cameras.

So if you really intend to pursue great photographs with your P&S, don't be scared away with the lack of proper control such as controlling DOF. You just have to do a bit more work - so instead of just standing there and typically shooting a subject like you would with a dSLR, with a P&S, you might have to watch your subject/background distance ratio more, stand back a bit and zoom in onto the subject instead etc. It's just more work. So under these situations, an Av mode still helps.

As for ease of accessing Exposure Compensation, it depends on the camera line. For the S5-IS and G9, it takes just one button (to access the EC bar). With the A-series and IXUS/SD range, you have to first press Set to access the Functions menu. So a few more clicks, but still only one to access the EC bar if you left the Function menu selection at the EC option the last time you pressed Set. So in terms of accessing EC, it would be no worse than doing it on a Rebel.