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Learn Your Camera's Modes & Functions
Mode is a modish word in photography today.
Even a fairly simple point-and-shoot can have several flash
modes, and focusing modes, and drive modes.... So just what
is a mode anyway, and why is it important?
A
mode is simply a set of instructions that tells the camera
to operate in a certain way. Point-and-shoot cameras may
seem pretty smart, but like computers, they're really very
dumb. Cameras, like computers, have to be told to do every
single thing they do - every time they do it. In fact, a
small computer in your point-and-shoot actually carries out
a mode's electronic instructions. You could just as easily
call modes programs, and some camera makers do just that!
Even if you've never touched any camera control except the
on/off switch and the shutter button, you've already set
the camera to a mode - many times, in fact. When you first
turn your camera on, it sets itself to its default mode.
This mode is usually called auto-flash because it automatically
fires the camera's built-in flash, if it's needed. You can
also call the mode all auto because everything else is automated,
too. Either way, the default mode is probably the one that
you'll be using the most.
Buttons To Push And Dials to Turn
The most typical way to change a mode is to press a button
on the camera and watch as different symbols or words representing
each mode appear on the LCD panel. Repeatedly pressing the
button to move through the modes is called toggling. If you
keep pushing the button, you eventually return to the default
mode and can start all over. You can toggle through the modes
as many times as you like to arrive at the one you want.
An icon is a symbolic representation of a specific point-and-shoot
mode, not to be confused with the icons used in this and
other. An icon can appear on an LCD panel, beside a button,
or along the edges of a dial. But modes may be represented
by words or letters, too, so an icon simply means any representation
of a mode that your camera uses.
If your point-and-shoot uses a dial (or dials) rather than
pushbuttons, the mode icons are printed around the edge.
This arrangement lets you see all the icons at once, instead
of having to view them sequentially as you do with a pushbutton.
You simply rotate the dial to the icon for the mode that
you want. Another kind of dial actually changes the icon
on the LCD display or moves an LCD pointer from icon to icon
as you rotate it.
Mode buttons on some point-and-shoots are so small that
they're hard to press, especially for ham-handed photographers.
If your fingernails don't do the job, try a pen or pencil.
Better yet, get yourself a paper clip - not a regular-size
one, but one of those two-inch jobs - and loop it around
your camera's neck or wrist strap. When you want to change
modes, unbend the free end and use it as a button-poker.
A fairly common arrangement on point-and-shoots is to have
one button that toggles through the flash modes and a second
one that toggles through all the remaining modes. Some cameras
have a dial only for flash modes relegating other modes to
a button. Some cameras have two dials. Some have two dials
and a button. Some have four, five, or six buttons, etc.
Unfortunately, no standard point-and-shoot control configuration
exists; every manufacturer uses its own arrangement. Nor
have camera manufacturers ever settled on standard icons
for different modes - which means that one model's icon for
landscape mode may look suspiciously like another model's
icon for backlight mode, and one's slow-sync flash may look
an awful lot like another's flash-off. The only surefire
way to find out what the icons on your particular camera
mean is to check the manual.
Write down and map your modes! Get out your camera and its
instruction manual, plus an index card and a pen. Push every
button and turn every dial on the camera. As you do, refer
to the manual and to the rundown of different modes that
follows. On the index card, write down the location of each
button or dial, and underneath, list the modes it toggles
or rotates through in the order they appear. Next to each
mode, write a brief description of what it does and what
it's good for.
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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