Icons and Settings: The New Breed

Last week I went over the most commonly found species of camera settings and their accompaning icons. This time I’ll navigate you through those found in the deep dark jungles of digital point and shoots and in alphabetical order no less!. Get your penlights ready.

Backlighting – When your subject is standing in front of a window or the sun (on Earth), use this setting. The camera will force the flash to go off thus illuminating the person properly rather than them becoming a silhouette or their face being extremely dark.

Beach/Snow – Snow and sand are highly reflective and can fool a camera into thinking the scene is far brighter than it is. Here the camera will close down it’s aperature to prevent overexposure and washed out highlights.

Dusk/Dawn – Sun down or sun up, the amount of light available is low although pretty. The camera will slow down the shutterspeed to allow more light through the lens. This means your camera should be steadied on a tripod or flat surface. The camera will also adjust the aperature for depth of field. Sunrise, sunset….sunrise, sunset…

Fireworks – This setting acts the same way that the Dusk/Dawn setting works. Be sure you have a tripod to avoid blurred images or Barrie might cry.

Museum – Museums including those with displays come to life after hours, don’t allow flash photography in most instances. By using this setting, although indoors, the flash is turned off thus requiring as much available light as possible. Many cameras use BSS (Best Shot Selector) and rapidly take a series of photos, keeping the best exposure.

Night Landscape – Have a tripod with you or use a sturdy flat surface as once again camera shake ruins a long exposure. To get a great night landscape the camera needs to shoot at a very slow speed and set the aperature to infinity. The flash will not fire because the city is more than 8 feet away.

Night Portrait – Got your tripod? Taking photos of someone in the dark? The camera will use a long exposure to compensate for the background and fire the flash to illuminate your kid/parent/friend/sibling/arch enemy.

Party/Indoor Snapshot – Birthday parties, wedding receptions, and surprise attacks on Grandma are just a few of the times you’ll want to use the Party setting. Your camera will use the flash along with red eye reduction and shoot at a slightly lower speed so try not to move.