A lot of people are intimidated by the PSAM (PTvAvM for Canon Users) dial.  Today we will go over what these different settings are and when they can be used.

There is usually a lot more than just the standard PSAM settings on the mode dial, but most of these are just variants of the "auto" mode and not the focus of this post. The letters PSAM stand for:

Primes are lenses that consist of a single focal point (they don't "zoom").

Why would you want a lens that can't zoom? Well they have a number of advantages which you can find out in today's list.