Its starting to finally "click"...
The different settings for aperture and shutter speed and their relation to one another has finally sunk into my head. Many times, I am too focused on the shot to think about what my settings are.... I know... scary isn't it. But, now that I am getting more practice and checking the settings to see what I used... its starting to finally "click"... and yes the pun was intended lol.
So, on my last expedition I thought about this more as I was shooting. I even started to use the manual exposure setting rather than aperture or shutter priority. Once I got used to which dial adjusts shutter speed and which adjusted aperture... I was comfortable using the manual mode for control.
Now I am beginning to understand why their is such a desire for the brighter and faster lenses that are of premium cost. Sadly, it will be a while before I can ever afford most of those so will have to make do with current lenses.