What do AE programs really do to your Sony camera ?
Sony won't tell you clearly.
Let's see if we can find out by ourselves !

A good start comes from this French website :
http://www.digital8.fr.st/

On D8 cams since 1999/2000:
-Spot:  automatic aperture, less 1 f-stop.
-Beach & Ski:  automatic aperture, plus 1 f-stop.
-Sports:  fast shutter (1/1000 to 1/4000)
-Soft Portrait:  Light controlled by shutter speed up to 1/500 before iris is closed, for narrower depth-of-field. Sharpness (edge enhancement) turned down to minimize outline effect.
-Sunset & Moon:  gain limited to +6db to preserve night ambiance, electronic stabilizer disabled to keep shutter speed down at 1/60th. Manual focus only to avoid "hunting".
-Landscape:  Focus at infinity to prevent auto-focus on foreground or bugs on the windshield.
-Candlelight (Low Lux):  Very slow shutter speed (1/4th)
-Backlight switch:  plus 2 f-stops

Menus (NTSC):
-Slow Shutter #1: 1/30th sec., deinterlaced, Auto-iris only, electronic stabilizer disabled (no strobe effect)
-Slow Shutter #2: 1/15th sec., deinterlaced, Auto-iris only, electronic stabilizer disabled (slight strobe effect)
-Slow Shutter #3: 1/8th sec., deinterlaced, Auto-iris only, electronic stabilizer disabled (notable strobe effect)
-Slow Shutter #4: 1/4th sec., deinterlaced, Auto-iris only, electronic stabilizer disabled (heavy strobe effect)

Note: To expose a frame during 1/30th sec., the cam totally discards the even field, while exposing the odd one twice as long. Then it duplicates the one exposed to replace the one discarded. Hence a 50% loss of vertical resolution (240 lines duplicated, instead of 480) but real 1/30th exposure.

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- Pete