photographing traning excercises, advice needed please?

Hi Louise, If it's only for fun/voluntary just go and enjoy. A longer lens might have been useful so you don't get caught up in the action too dangerously A spare fully charged battery is always handy if you have one.

Hi, I don't know anything about Serve on, but i am on the fire service here in Ireland. As it seems to be night training, light might be your biggest problem, they will most likely have lights set up so they can work but they may hinder you at times also, a tripod might be handy for some shots and external flash if you have them, the service guys or gals will probably be delighted to have someone there taking photos. See if you can speak to the station officer about what and where he will let you go, he / she may want you to remain a certain distance back depending on the training that they are doing. We are usually an approachable bunch and are used to having an audience while we work.
Good luck on the night and let us know how it goes.
Derek

Oh and don't worry about messing up, Ive seen your portfolio, you know your way around the camera

'Program' mode .... An automatic exposure mode where the camera measures the light levels and chooses a suitable aperture and shutter 'speed' , taking into account the ISO that is set and the focal length (with Autofocus lenses). The camera will try to choose settings that provides a shutter 'speed' ok for handholding in daylight.

The exposure is further adjusted by the photographer using 'exposure compensation' to make things darker or brighter ... Again, it is the camera that would decide which of either aperture or shutter 'speed' to adjust in response to EC inputs.

The mode is good for quick working when you're not wanting to make any specific judgements over certain creative aspects, such as depth of field (aperture) or motion depiction (shutter). It does not remove the need however to decide on the exposure levels needed and make appropriate compensations to correct for any metering inaccuracies.

The P mode on Pentax DSLR's has a user - set refinement in the 'Program Line' function, accessed on the Control Panel .... This has options such as 'auto', 'Depth', Speed' etc to create a bias in the programming towards the setting ...eg a 'Depth' Program Line would aim to use smaller apertures where possible for greater depth of field. So the user has some influence over the automated results and should choose the setting that reflects their subject matter or creative ideas.

Don't you believe it. Those classic prints are not as straightforward as you might think.

http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-dar...