Canon EOS 40D: Program Mode

Video Transcript

"Alright, we're talking about the modes on the Canon 40D. The first mode we're going to talk about in the creative zone is the program mode. This mode is indicated by a P on your program dial, on the top of your camera on the left side. This mode, basically all it does is set automatically your aperture, F-stop, and the shutter speed to what it thinks will give you an accurate exposure. The difference between program mode and fully automatic mode is that a lot of the functions that are not available to you in fully automatic mode, such as auto focus, drive mode, ISO settings, automatic built in flash, all of those options can be tweaked and changed when you're in program mode but not when you are in fully automatic mode. So it is a little bit, there is a little bit more room for creativity in this program mode. The other thing with program mode is, once you're set to this P setting here on your camera if you press the shutter half way down you can see that all of my settings show up automatically on the LCD here. Right now I've got a 2.8 F-stop with one hundred and twenty-five shutter speed. So what I can do, it's called program shift, is hold down the shutter button up here on the top, half way and with my other finger I can take the main control dial and shift the settings here so the aperture is getting lighter, while my shutter speed is getting faster. When I am shifting the other direction my aperture is getting smaller, therefore my shutter speed needs to be a little bit slower to get more light in there. These should all, you should end up with the same kind of exposure on these, the depth of field will change but that is called program shift. The other thing you can do in program mode, while holding down the shutter button, is take the quick control dial and scroll to the right to increase your exposure by a third of a stop or scroll to the left to decrease your exposure by a third of a stop. That is called the program shift option in program mode. Program is a good creative zone mode to start with."