Cameras are not created equal. When you pick up your basic Kodak Brownie Box Camera, there is nothing to adjust. You had no controls. Kodak made the ultimate simple camera and used the slogan, “You push the button, we do the rest.”

There were several versions of the Brownie made by Kodak through the years. The first one had no flash, and later they would incorporate the flash bulb to help you take photos indoors.

Photo by Capt Kodak

Over time people learned how to get good photos because they often had pictures that didn’t come out or were very poor. They learned to keep the sun in the subject’s face versus having them backlighted by the sun.

To overcome those limitations, camera manufacturers started to give control to the photographer.

They put three controls on the cameras: 1) Focus, 2) Aperture, and 3) Shutter Speed.

The film manufacturers then created various films we could put into the camera. The film’s sensitivity allowed you to take photos from outside in bright sunlight to inside without a flash. You would buy Black and White movies with ASA ratings of 12 to 3,200.

You could buy daylight and tungsten film in various ASAs when the color film came out. Later the ASA, which stood for American Standards Association, now ISO, which stands for International Standards Organization.

Before explaining how we got more camera modes, we must first understand the Manual Mode. Manual mode controls Aperture and Shutter Speed.

Aperture

The Aperture is identical to the function of the iris of our eyes. It controls how much light comes through the lens to the sensor.

If you have ever taken a magnifying glass and tried to burn a leaf, you know how to get a bright point by putting the glass between the sun and the leaf and moving it back and forth. Moving it back and forth is precisely how the focus works on the camera.

You will notice this larger light circle when you reach that fine point. If you cut a small hole in a piece of cardboard, you can hold it between the magnifying glass and the leaf and eliminate that from the circle.

If instead of burning a leaf, you were doing this with a camera and taking a photo, the more you eliminate that outer circle, things in front of the subject and behind it that you focused on will become more in focus. This is what we call depth-of-field (DOF). The bigger the opening, the less DOF you have; the background and foreground become fuzzy.

Shutter Speed

While the Aperture controls how much light comes through the lens, the Shutter Speed controls how long the light is on the sensor.

We can stop a bullet if we shorten the time to 1/280,000 of a second. Edgerton did this with a flash to freeze the bullet after going through an apple. Here is a link to that photo.

The longer you keep the shutter open, long enough you can blur things. In this photo from the Civil War times of a street, if you look closely, you will see the blur of people walking and moving. This is how many of those empty streets were photographed back then. The people were there, but not long enough to be recorded.

During the Civil War Times

Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO Combined

When you mix the controls, you must find the right amount of light coming through the lens and staying on the sensor, which has been set to a specific sensitivity (ISO) for good exposure.

Camera Modes

There are four main camera modes on many of today’s DSLR cameras.

• Aperture Priority – In this mode, the photographer picks the Aperture they want to work with when photographing a subject. They may want a shallow DOF or everything in focus. Sometimes the photographer wants something else in between. They use the DOF preview button to see what they will get. I wrote an earlier blog on using that here. While the photographer controls the Aperture, the camera picks the shutter speed that correctly exposes the photo for the ISO preferred.
• Shutter Priority (Tv Mode on Canon) – This is where the photographer picks the shutter speed to either freeze a subject or blur some of the photographs.  
• Manual Mode – This is where the photographer is in total control and picks the shutter speed and the Aperture. To be sure the photo is exposed correctly, they will use the camera meter to get the best exposure for the ISO they also picked.
• Program Mode – With today’s most modern cameras, the camera has sensors built into the lenses to talk to the camera. This lets the camera know which lens is on the camera and pick the best average setting for aperture and shutter speed to expose the scene correctly.

Scene Modes

Some of the many scene modes are: scene auto selector, portrait, landscape, sports, night portrait, party/indoor, beach, snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, night landscape, close-up, food, museum, fireworks show, copy, backlighting, panorama assist, candlelight, pet portrait, blossom, autumn colors, silhouette, high key, and low key.

These scene modes are like cheat sheets. The photographer does not need to know how to set the camera but pick the scene that best matches what they are photographing.

Snow example

If you have ever photographed in snow, no matter which of the four modes you choose, A, S, M, or P, they will all be too dark. The camera sees all that snow as it is too bright. It doesn’t know that it is snow.

Experience photographers will open up the exposure by 1.3 or 1.5 stops. For the person not knowing what to do, they pick the snow setting, and the camera will now open up the essential exposure by 1.3 to 1.5 stops to get a good exposure.

Portrait Example

For portraits, you want a shallow Depth-of-Field. You want the background out of focus and the foreground, as I have done in this photo. Not sure how to do that; just set your camera to portrait scene mode.

Sports Example

When shooting sports, the photographer generally uses a very high speed to freeze the action and a relatively shallow depth of field to make the subject pop out from the background. Figuring this out as the player runs in and out of the sunlight takes some skill, or you can select the sports scene mode on your camera.

Silhouette Example

Maybe you like photographing sunsets and sunrises but want the ground silhouetted. In general, you will need to underexpose the photo about two stops. Again, not sure what to do to get that silhouette, then put your camera on the silhouette scene mode.

You make the choice

It would be best to think before you push the shutter button to get all these different looks. What type of photo am I making? If you do not know and just like pointing the camera and pressing the button, you need to put the camera in “Program Mode.” This will get you closest to a usable photograph.

If you have been shooting in “Program Mode” for a while and are not satisfied with your results, then you need to be able to categorize your photo, at least that you are trying to make, by using the scene mode categories.

After shooting with these scene modes, you may discover you still want even more control. Maybe you want to control the DOF more, so you can now choose “Aperture Mode.”

Maybe you discovered you need to pick the shutter speed, and you can use the “Shutter Mode” to have more control.

You may have situations you need complete control, and you can now choose “Manual Mode.”

Having a camera with all these modes can be overwhelming or help you get what you want.

Once you decide you want more control and understand how to use your camera’s functionality, you will finally pick up the manual you never opened when you bought the camera.

The camera manual explains all the modes and even has examples. Now take that lens cap off and go and shoot some photos.