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Pick of the scene modes

Posted on 27 Jan 2010 at 11:50

Camera manufacturers stuff their products with "scene modes" which are intended to make their cameras as easy to use as possible - we pick the most useful

Night portraits

If you’re taking shots with a night-time background – taking the kids to see a fireworks display, for instance – night portrait is worthwhile. This mode fires the flash to illuminate the subject, as with a normal flash shot. But the camera then leaves the shutter open a little longer, allowing the camera to expose the scenery behind and around the subject.

Rather than a stark shot of your subject’s face bathed in the light of the flash and nothing else, some of the background detail is brought out to retain the atmosphere of the shot. To get the best out of this mode you need to keep the camera as steady as possible to avoid blurring of the background, since the shutter will open for a relatively long time.

Children/Pets/Sports Mode

The precise implementation of this varies according to each camera, but what it will usually do is turn off the flash and put the camera into burst mode.

The camera will try to use a fast shutter speed so that it can capture fast-moving action without blurring, such as the kids bombing down the street on their new bike or the dog running around the park. Don’t expect miracles: for really serious sports photography a digital SLR camera is a must, but it does give you more of a chance to capture any kind of event where the action is fast-moving and unpredictable.

Aquarium/Foliage

These kinds of modes are primarily about getting the colour balance right. Taking pictures of foliage and fish tanks means there may be no white objects in the frame for the camera to get its bearings, so the colours in the shot may look odd. Selecting one of these modes tells the camera roughly what kind of environment to expect, giving it enough information to work on.

Stitch assist/panorama assist

Not quite as common as the other modes, but stitch assist is a great help in making panoramas (see p98 for more). Usually, once you’ve taken the first shot, the camera shows the right-hand third of the initial shot while the rest of the frame shows the live view. This lets you match up the next shot for the best chance of successful stitching.

Author: David Fearon and Ben Pitt