Know Your Camera: Preset Modes

How well can one drive if they don't know all the gears in their car? Photography is an art, and the camera is the source of expression for an artist. If you don't know your camera well, you're missing out big. Check out the settings in your camera. You'll be surprised how much you didn't know. Most people spend their life taking pictures on the most predictable, easily available and commonly known Automatic mode. Why it is automatic, and what do the rest of non-automatic modes do, seldom are aware of. Lets explore the basic shooting modes that comes with your digital camera, and even point and shoot cameras these days.

Automatic Mode

It is the most widely used mode by digital camera and point ans shoot camera owners alike. In this mode your camera is making judgement about its subject and adjusting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash, focus and white balance. In some cameras, the photographer is has control over flash and red eye reduction, however auto mode is a fully automatic setting where photographer need not tell camera anything extra. This mode is best to use in balanced lit areas shooting average subjects that are not involved in fast motion.

Portrait Mode

In the portrait mode your camera set itself on large aperture (small number) ensuring the subject sharply in focus and background out of focus (i.e. it sets a narrow depth of field).
Note: Depth of field is the area that is in focus.
Portrait mode gives best result shooting a single subject. Get closer to it either by moving or zooming in (so that you entail the head and shoulder of the subject).
Some digital cameras these days come with a technology of Face Detection/Face Priority. It's very useful when the subject is not in the center of the image. 

Portrait Mode Settings:
Larger Aperture (Smaller f-number)
Lower ISO (Better picture quality)
Slow Shutter Speed
Color adjustments to enhance skin tone

Landscape Mode

This mode is the opposite of portrait mode in terms of its setting and result. It sets a lower aperture (large number) allowing you a large depth of field so that the scene you are shooting is focused in maximum detail. It is best for wide scenes with point of interests scattered in it. To compensate for the large aperture, your camera sets a slow down the shutter speed, so you'd need to make sure your camera stays still, and avoid movement. 

Landscape Mode Settings:
Small Aperture (Larger f-number)
Slow Shutter Speed
Adjustments to enhance color in the landscape

Sports/Action Mode

To photograph moving subjects or scenes, is what Sports/Action mode is for. It is best for shooting people playing, cars, pets, wildlife, etc. Even if you are shooting a scene from a moving car, this mode will help you. It freezes the action by lowering the shutter speed (as much as your lighting conditions will allow), which means a wider aperture, less focus and higher ISO. As you have a narrow depth of field, getting closer to the action will help improve sharpness (instead of zooming).

Sports/Action Mode Settings:
High Shutter Speed
Large Aperture (Smaller f-number)
High ISO (More Noise in Image)


Macro Mode

This mode allows you to get closer to the subject for a close-up shot, like flowers, insects and other small objects. Different camera has its own specs and capabilities for macro mode, e.g. focusing distance varies, normally 2-10 cm in point-and-shoot cameras. Remember that in macro mode, you have a very narrow depth of field so focusing at short distance requires attention. Even moving slightly towards or away from the subject will lose your focus. It is preferable to keep your camera parallel to your subject if you want to maintain your maximum focus. Better keep your built-in flash shut, because it will burn out the image.

Night Mode

Also celled as ''slow shutter sync'', night mode is for photographing in low light conditions by using longer shutter speed to capture details of background. It increases the ISO, and fires a flash to enlighten the foreground and subject. This mode is best for indoors, parties and dance floors with colorful lights, enabling you to have fun with interesting pictures. Although if you need a well balanced 'serious' shot, you'll need to use a support to avoid blurred background, however you will love the experimental look by deliberately blurring the background with lights behind your subject. 

Other Less Used Automatic Modes

Here are some scarcely used modes in cameras these days:

• Panaromic/Stitch Mode: For taking pictures in panaromic state and stitch them up later as one image. This is used to photographing scenes too wide for your camera.
• Fireworks Mode: It allows the camera to leave shutter open longer and capture multiple fireworks, thunderstorm or lightening. 
• Snow Mode: It tells the camera to overexpose from its normal judgement for the tricky bright lighting at the snow.
• Kids and Pets Mode: Used for fast moving objects- It increases the shutter speed and help bringing shutter lag down, by pre-focusing. 
• Beach Mode: Similar to snow mode, it does special adjustments to color and exposure for the light coming from sand and water.
• Indoor Mode: It helps adjusting shutter speed and white balance.
• Food/Gourmet Mode: It enables macro settings and control of white balance by creating bright food images with vivid colors.
• Underwater Mode: It has its own set of requirements for exposure.
• Sunrise/Sunset Mode: It adjusts with the color to enhance the beautiful colors of light making them more dramatic.
• Foliage Mode: It boosts the saturation to show bold colors for outdoors, like assuming a lot of green and producing a vibrant image.

 

Having discussed various Automatic Modes in detail, we are left with semi-automatic modes and fully manual mode. These require a better understanding of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, etc. Its best for more photographers who have experimented quite a lot or professionals. To learn in more depth about this subject you can check out Digital Photography School as a reference.