Digital Camera settings

PORTRAITS

TOPICS

BASICS

HELP

Digital Camera Settings

Camera Settings Dial Understanding digital camera settings and when to use them will be a great help in taking better digital photos.

I'll be covering the digital camera function that make all the decisions for you first. these are often called the programmed settings. Then I'll cover the camera settings that give you more control over your photographs.

Portrait

This setting will set the camera to have a reduced depth of field. In other words, it will favor your camera to focus on the subject closer to the camera and will allow the background to be less focused.

Landscape

It's usually desirable to have a large range of things in focus for landscape photography. This camera setting prioritizes a large depth of field. Holding the camera very steady is important because the shutter speed may be a little slower. You will want to avoid any motion blur.

Close up

This is also called "macro" mode which should allow you to get good photos when photographing things close-up. This is one of the rare instances where I recommend using your camera's small video screen on the back of your camera to compose your photo.

When shooting close ups, the regular viewfinder may not give you an accurate view of what you are actually taking a picture of. Start by checking your camera instructions to see what the closest distance is that you can get to your subject.

Sports or Action

This camera mode will use a high ISO setting and a high shutter speed to "freeze" the action. The best situation for high speed photography is to have lots of light. This is to get a very fast shutter speed to stop motion blur and still get a good exposure.

In darker situations, using a dslr and a "fast" lens are a big advantage. A "fast" lens means it has a very wide lens opening or aperture and lets a large amount of light into the camera. This means you can use a faster shutter speed and still get the right photo exposure.

Night Scene

This is a unique digital camera mode to use. Night mode will have a slow shutter speed to create the right exposure and will use the flash as well. It changes the timing on when the flash fires during the long exposure.

Digital Camera Settings Since I grew up using film cameras, before the programmed settings above were available, I prefer these settings below.

Aperture Priority

Aperture priority means you have control of the aperture. Aperture is the size of the opening that the light travels through to hit the sensor inside your camera. You set that and the camera will set the shutter speed to give you the best photo exposure.

This is my favorite digital camera setting and I use this setting primarily in two photography situations:

1. When I am shooting portraits. I use a wide open (small f-stop number) to have my subject in focus and my background be blurry.

2. I use a small aperture when I am doing landscape photography. I want to be sure that things close to the camera AND things that are far away from the camera are in focus. using a high f-stop number like f-16 or higher gives us a big depth of field.

3. In addition to the definition of aperture priority, you can learn other photography definitions here: Photography Definitions

Sharp Water Photo Blurry Water Photo

Shutter Priority

With shutter priority, you choose the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture. This is a popular digital camera setting in sports photography.

Different sports or activities will require different shutter speeds to "freeze" the action.

I used shutter priority for this sharp photo of water running my my kitchen sink.

I set the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second to freeze" the action. The camera decided on the right aperture to get the right photo exposure.

In the blurry photo of the running water, I set the camera on a one second exposure and it determined the right aperture to get the right exposure.

This is a popular digital camera setting when photographing waterfalls, fireworks and similar time exposure photographs. You may be interested in how I used shutter priority when I took these Bike Race Pictures

Exposure override

This camera function is usually not included on the camera's setting dial. It is often found within the menu you view on the screen on the back of point and shoot cameras.With a professional dslr it can be found in a variety of places. I use this function quite a bit.

Most cameras are programmed to read a scene as typical and give a good average exposure. There are instances though, because of the unique subject matter, this will result in a bad exposure.

With beach scenes or snow scenes where most of the photograph is light or white, you may want to overexpose by one f-stop. With scenes that have almost all dark colors and background with a few small light areas, you may want to underexpose a little.

Manual

Shooting in Manual gives you complete and total control of your camera's settings. It also gives you the most chances for screwing up the exposure. Using the camera's histogram is a smart idea if you are shooting in manual mode.

Understanding the different digital camera settings for your camera and when you should use them will help you become a better photographer. As with all of the topics covered on this web site, enjoy the learning process. It takes time, but remember the time flies when you're having fun.

Go back from Digital Camera Settings to Digital Camera Instructions

Back from Digital Camera Settings to Digital Photo Tips Home Page