Last Updated on 07/13/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Aperture priority is basically just Automatic mode for photographers who don’t want to shoot in Automatic mode.
For a number of years, I’ve shot a whole lot in aperture priority on my cameras. It’s simple; it means I can sit there and shoot while just controlling the depth of field and let the camera figure everything else out on its own. This translates to my love of glorious bokeh and the algorithms are so good that every camera can do it and take identical images so folks can then say their’s is better or someone else’s is worse. It’s essential for those days that you want to dress up a bit nicer and pretend you’re a modern Bresson because, of course, that’s all Bresson would use today. He’d just say, “F8 and be there!” which would mean less bokeh and more of the scene itself.
As time progressed I’ve come to accept this more and more; the fact that I’m not a photographer who creates images. Instead, I just want to be a photographer who captures the moments. I don’t care about being creative; that’s for hipsters. I care more about the megapickles and the bokeh. Art doesn’t really have a place in photography–all that matters instead is just getting that beautiful bokeh and being able to import the RAWs into Adobe Lightroom CC for me to peep the pixels. And if the focus is just a bit off, then I need to throw away the entire PC, purchase a new one, and take a new photo.
For this reason, I think that it would be a great idea for the camera industry to create a brand new shooting mode: Bokeh priority. Aperture priority is truly just amateur hour. It’s for photographers who care about just having a bit of controls over their images. But with Bokeh priority, photographers who use this mode will have even more control over the bokeh. In some ways, the phone manufacturers get it. I mean, look at Apple, Huawei, Google, etc. You can control the bokeh on their phones! It’s beautiful. So why doesn’t Olympus, Sony, Fujifilm, or even Canon have this?
Editor’s Note: This is a major troll post. Chill. It’s not that serious.