Picture this – you have just bought yourself a brand new beginner digital camera. You thumb through the manual hastily and are now dying to start shooting. So tell me – which shooting option on your beginner digital camera do you start with? I guess there are no prizes for getting that one right. Almost all users of a beginner digital camera opt for the automatic or “Auto” mode most of the time. But there are other options as well, and let us take a look at them all.

Exposure Modes

A note on exposure here – think of your camera lens as a window. The quantity of light depends on how long you open the window (that’s shutter speed) – and how wide you open it (that’s lens aperture)!

A Digital SLR has all the exposure modes for the advanced user or the pro – full manual, semi-automatic (shutter priority and aperture priority), and Automatic – in addition to other program modes. But you need to learn a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo to master it all. Your beginner digital camera won’t have most of these options, but you can still give it a few pointers regarding the particular photographic situation you are in – and help it shoot a better photo for you!

By providing you with a choice of specific scene modes, your beginner digital camera in essence lets you take great shots without having to learn all about complicated exposure control. I have listed out the modes usually found on a beginner digital camera – happy shooting!  

Automatic Mode - Digital Camera for Beginner

The auto mode leaves it to your beginner digital camera to decide for itself on the exposure (aperture plus shutter speed), ISO, focus, flash, and white balance settings, among others. You can get good results with this mode in general conditions. But tricky lighting or motion conditions could leave it confused, and the result might be overexposed (too bright), underexposed (too dark), or blurred pictures. 

Portrait Mode

Shift to portrait mode and your beginner digital camera chooses a large aperture or lens opening. The large apertures keep focus limited on the subject and blur out the distracting background or foreground. Now if that doesn’t help create a good portrait, nothing will.

Tips –

1. Getting closer to your subject will blur the background even more.

2. When shooting against light for a “halo”, activating the flash will show the subject’s face better.

Macro Mode

This mode let’s you get really close to your subject for a close up shot. Macro mode features like magnification ratios and minimum focusing distances (anything between 2 and 10 centimeters) vary greatly from one beginner digital camera to another. Focusing is also a chore – yes, even with autofocus! But all the effort will be worth it when you take striking close ups of flowers and butterflies, and funny shots of everyday items from a new perspective! Just keep the following in mind when you shoot close ups:

Tips –

1. Keep the camera back parallel to the subject as far as possible.

2. Try to use a tripod whenever possible – even a tiny camera movement can leave the subject out of focus!

3. Don’t use the built-in flash – it will burn the subject out (i.e. overexpose them).

Landscape Mode

The landscape mode on your beginner digital camera is diametrically opposite to the portrait mode.  It sets the smallest aperture available on the camera lens that’s possible under the circumstances to hold focus throughout the image. Both foreground and background details need to be in focus in a landscape shot.

Tip –

Smaller apertures have to be made up for by slower shutter speeds; so hold steady, or better, use tripods/bean bags for support.

Sports Mode

Sports mode is also referred to as Action Mode in a few digital camera for beginners models. It’s used to shoot all moving objects or people – sportspersons, running children, pets, cars, wild animals, and so on. This mode “freezes” action or movement by using a high shutter speed.

Tips –

1. Panning the camera helps freeze moving subject (it reduces relative speed).

2. Focusing beforehand on a spot where you want to freeze the moving subject will get you sharper pictures.  

Night Mode

This mode can give you some truly interesting and colorful shots in low light conditions. You can capture the lights in the background as well as the subject nearer the camera with this mode as it uses the flash setting called slow-shutter synchronization. You can take serious photos with a tripod (fireworks, say) or funny ones without it (on the dance floor, maybe). This mode is included in the best digital camera for beginner photographers.

Movie Mode

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where still photography is just not enough to capture an event. You wish you had your video camera with you instead of your beginner digital camera! The cheapest digital camera models do not have a movie mode. The movie mode in your beginner digital camera comes to your rescue in such situations. It shoots low resolution video images – with sound – for you to play back later. Just remember that movie images take up much larger space on your memory card compared to still images.

Now there can be many other scene modes like snow scene, building, children, seaside, birthday, and so on, depending on the make or the price segment of the camera. But whatever be the scene modes that you have on your beginner digital camera, just keep using them to get truly great shots under most conditions. Visit our online store for a large selection and bargain prices at beginner digital camera store.

Tags: Beginner Digital Camera Modes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Beginner Digital Camera Modes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.