Triage for critical situations
Try to develop the ability to choose a setting to change in a split second – you’ll need it
This medical term, familiar to hospital drama addicts, means making a quick judgment on a three-way priority, and it may not be too fanciful to apply the term ‘triage’ to exposure, because every shooting situation demands that you prioritise one of the three exposure settings. Also, when it’s a fastmoving situation and you’re not in control, which is surely the case with most interesting photography, you need to do this quickly.
If there’s plenty of light, and you have a large-scale subject where nothing much is moving, such as a sunlit landscape, then you have more options – an f/stop here or there, or a faster or slower shutter speed, isn’t going to make much difference. However, when things get critical, then one or two settings have to give way, and that’s when you need sound judgment.