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Full Auto and Picture Control Modes

Sometimes called a “point-and-shoot” mode, most cameras offer a full auto mode. Full auto rarely allows exposure compensation or any other adjustments. This is a great mode for casual family snapshots or vacation photography.

Many cameras also include special full auto modes sometimes called Scene modes, which are designed to work with specific subjects such as Portraits, Landscapes, Macro, etc. These usually affect more than just the exposure, including settings such as flash, focus, and focal length.

This mode favors wide lens openings and longer “portrait” focal lengths to render the face in soft focus with diffuse backgrounds. See .

Designed for scenic photography, this mode selects small apertures and wider focal lengths for maximum angle of view and depth of field.

High shutter speeds are chosen to stop action. See .

This mode is helpful for long exposures without flash. See .

These modes balance the foreground flash and existing-light background exposure so that backgrounds do not appear dark in the photo. It is also useful for more than night photography (try it on people on a gloomy, cloudy day, for example).

This mode sets a moderate aperture to balance a faster shutter speed (to minimize the effects of camera movement during the exposure) for close focus work. See .

Camera manufacturers are beginning to include these technologies in both mini digital cameras and high end digital SLRs. Face detection cameras scan the scene, searching for two eyes, a nose, and a mouth—when it recognizes a face (or faces) it will automatically adjust exposure and focus to provide the best conditions for a portrait. Some of the higher-end cameras can recognize up to 10–15 faces in a scene. It will also ignore smaller faces meant to fade into the background. Smile technology takes this concept one step further—when the camera detects a grin or a laugh from your subject, it automatically takes a picture. Both of these features can be turned off for non-human subjects.

Many digital cameras offer additional, more sophisticated exposure modes.

Program Mode (P)

The camera sets both the aperture (lens opening) and shutter speed for you. If your camera allows Program Shift, you will be able to quickly change the camera-selected shutter speed and aperture combination while maintaining an equivalent exposure.

Shutter-Priority Mode (S or Tv)

You select the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture for you. This allows you to control how action is rendered in the photograph.

Aperture-Priority Mode (A or Av)

You set the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed. This gives you control over depth of field.

All else being equal, smaller apertures (larger f/numbers) maximize depth of field. However, you must be aware of the shutter speed the camera is selecting to prevent the possibility of unsharp pictures due to camera movement.

Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB)

Offered on some advanced cameras, this feature can generally be used with Program, Shutter-Priority, and Aperture-Priority modes. The camera’s exposure bracketing system automatically varies exposures in a series of three photos, which deviate by a set range from the metered value. This gives you exposure choices in the finished images.

Manual Exposure (M)

If offered on your camera, manual exposure is useful when you have tricky lighting, when shooting panoramic photos where side-by-side photos must match, when you are trying to match flash with existing light, or for creative effects.

Some cameras offer several metering options for Manual mode, like center-weighted and partial metering. Center-weighted systems favor the meter sensors in the center of the photo, then decrease in sensitivity toward the outside of the frame. Partial metering focuses on a small spot in the image area (usually the center).

* Don’t be intimidated by user-controlled exposure modes. With practice, you’ll learn how to set the best settings to get the look you want.