If you read the first article “Using Your New digital Camera #1” and have taken some photographs, you should be familiar with your camera’s automatic mode. It’s now time to stretch your wings and learn about some of the other great features that your camera has to offer.

Your digital camera has a brain! It’s not very large and is made up of millions of small electronic parts but it is very good at doing what it has been programmed to do. Its sole purpose in life is to make it as easy as possible for you to obtain great images! The camera can do what it’s programmed to do better than we can most of the time. Your camera has been designed to automatically focus, choose the best exposure, and choose the best color balance. Some of the newer cameras can even seek out and automatically focus on faces in the scene.

You may have noticed that I said that the camera gets it right “most of the time”. I say this because there are times when the camera can be fooled. In those circumstances, it is up to us to give the camera a little help. For example, you take a photo of a friend outside in the harsh, bright sunlight of the early afternoon. When you initially pushed the shutter button, your camera took an exposure reading of your friend and the surrounding area and decided that it was a bright sunny day and that flash was not needed. After reviewing the picture on your LCD screen, you notice that there are deep shadows on your friend’s face caused by the harsh sunlight. You then change the flash setting on your camera to “forced flash” which tells your camera to use flash, even though the camera thinks it doesn’t need it. You retake the photo and this time the flash fills in the shadows and you get a great photo of your friend. One of the advantages of digital cameras is the fact that you can review your image as soon as you take it. This instant feedback is a great learning tool and an easy way to check to make sure that your camera has made a good decision when taking that important picture. If you don’t like the first image then take another. It doesn’t cost anything except a little room on your media card to take another shot.

You can help the camera to “think ahead” when taking a particular type of photo by using the Enhanced Scene Modes or Preset Modes. These are modes that are optimized for specific types of images, such as sports photography, night shots, close-ups, portraits, or landscapes. Depending on the camera, these modes may be available by turning a dial or may be found under a section of your camera menu.
 

Each camera brand and model may be different but the manual that came with your camera has instructions on how to select these modes. Each camera does not necessarily have all of the same modes but let’s look at some of the more common settings and discover what they do.

Portrait Mode: Blurs the background so that the subject in the foreground stands out. Enhances the color and slightly softens skin tones

Action/Sports Mode: Sets the camera to try to freeze movement so that a moving subject is in sharp focus. Flash is usually turned off. The camera may also be set to “continuous shooting” mode in which a series of photos are taken when the shutter release button is held down. This creates a series of frozen action shots of the moving subject.

Landscape Mode: Tries to bring everything into focus from foreground to background. Optimizes the camera for “nature” colors such as blue skies and green leaves. The flash is usually not available in this mode. It is best to use a tripod when using this mode.

Close-up Mode: Helps to set the camera to take photographs of small objects such as flowers, insects, coins, jewelry, etc. and enhances the color. The camera is set up to try to bring the main subject into sharp focus from back to front. This is not the same as the Macro setting. The macro mode allows the camera to focus at a closer range than normal (we will talk about this mode later).

Night Flash Mode: Use this mode when it is desirable to have a bright background behind your subject at night. An example would be taking a night photo of a friend or family member while in Las Vegas in front of a famous landmark building when you want the lights of the building in the background to appear in the image. The camera will be set to fire the flash to expose the friend or family member and then the camera’s shutter will stay open long enough to expose for the lights in the background. It is important that the camera is placed on a tripod when shooting in this mode. The camera uses a slow shutter speed to expose for the background so any movement of the camera will result in a blurred image.
 

Additional modes may be available on your digital camera. Some cameras can have as many as 30 or more different modes usually located in the menu options. Some of the other modes that can be found on different digital cameras are Fireworks, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Pets, Food, Document Copy, Black and White, Sepia Tone and more. Have fun with your new digital camera by experimenting with the different modes to see how they affect the outcome of your image.