Mini Digital Cameras Scene & Shooting Modes

Today, digital cameras come with a whole range of in-built shooting and scene modes. Some digital cameras even come with programmable modes that allow advance photographers to adjust modes to suit their own picture styles. Here are some of the common scene and shooting modes that are found in most digital cameras today and what they are actually used for.

Automatic Shooting Mode

Most users use the automatic mode for almost all their photos. The automatic mode adjusts the need for flash, shutter speed and sometimes even automatic focuses depending on the ambient light setting. This is the easiest mode to use, but sometimes it just doesn’t capture photos nicely enough, so this is where knowing the other modes can come in useful.

Macro Shooting Mode

Macro shooting mode is used for shooting objects that are very close to your camera. You could be shooting objects like flowers, insects or fine details like writing which will need you to bring your camera very close to the object. The macro mode will help to adjust the focal range of your camera accordingly.

Continuous/burst Shooting Mode

This mode lets you press and hold the camera's shutter button for capturing a series of shots in rapid succession. It is useful for shooting fast-moving subjects like pets or important occasions. It can be difficult to try and time the blowing out of candles for taking a photo, but with the continuous mode, you can be sure you’ll most certainty capture it on picture. Also useful if you’re trying to catch the exact moment your child receives his or her diploma.

Movie Shooting Mode

The movie mode is of course, for shooting movies. Digital cameras today aren’t so much about shooting photos anymore, but they are all equipped with movie shooting capabilities and so they double up as a digital video camera.

Manual Shooting Mode

If you’re someone who knows what you’re doing with photography, then the manual mode is the way to go for you. You can set the shutter speed yourself, adjust the colour gradient and choose when to use and not to use flash mode depending on the effect you want to create. This mode gives you flexibility that the automatic mode doesn’t but can be difficult to achieve good photos if you’re not sure what each setting means. Beside automatic and manual modes, most cameras offer intermediate shooting modes that allows you to optimise the camera settings for specific situations, but without having to set them manually. These are called the scene modes.

Portrait Scene Mode

The portrait mode helps you take photos on a central subject. It does not have to be a person; basically, if you want to focus the picture on just one object in the foreground, the portrait mode is very useful for that. The camera blurs the background and focuses on a central subject.

Landscape Scene mode

As the name suggests, this mode is good for landscape photos. The camera increases the exposure time to achieve greater clarity from the front to the back of the scene.

Night Scene mode

This is useful for taking photos of a night scene where the ambient lighting is low. You could use the flash, but the flash tends to over expose part or more of the picture, especially white coloured portions. In the night scene mode, the camera decreases the shutter speed to allow more light to enter the camera, with little or no help from the flash. This allows objects in the foreground to be softly lighted and improved lighting.

Action/sports Scene Mode

Unlike the continuous shoot mode, the action mode doesn’t take multiple pictures, but instead, it increases sensitivity (also known as ISO) so that the camera can capture fast moving objects quickly without blurring.

Beach/ski Scene mode

This mode is used at the beach or with snow because sand and snow reflect so much light that photos show backlit subjects with darkened faces. To reduce backlight, the camera adjusts exposure to accurately render subjects in the foreground as well as clear skies, and reduces exposure from snow or white sand in the background.

Fireworks/candlelight Scene mode

Today capturing fireworks on a normal digital camera is becoming a possibility with the new fireworks scene mode. Camera flash is disabled and the camera exposure is adjusted to capture bright lights in a dimly lit setting.

Face detection technology

Face detection technology is one of the newest additions to digital camera range of advance features. As the name would suggest; the camera recognises faces and focus on them for greater clarity. This assumes that the face is what you’re actually looking to capture in the photo. However, it can be problematic in many situations. The camera sometimes focuses on what it thinks is a face, but could be simply a surface with more contours (thus misleading it to be a face). This technology isn’t very mature, so the camera doesn’t always understand what you’re trying to achieve. More recent models even have smile detection that snaps when it recognises a smile, and as expected, more misunderstanding between the user and the camera.