Understanding Digital Camera Modes

Having a good understanding of the digital camera modes is essential to control the exposure in photography. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced amateur, you should know what each camera mode does and when it should be used, under what circumstances.

What are Digital Camera Modes?

Digital Camera Modes allow photographers to control the parameters of an exposure, specifically, Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. While certain modes can fully automate the camera exposure, there are other modes that let the photographer manually control some or all parameters of the exposure.

Back in the old days, there was no such thing as a camera mode – everything was manual. Photographers had to manually set the aperture, shutter speed and choose the right type of film for their cameras. To evaluate the intensity and the amount of light, they used to carry special light metering devices that measured the light and provided the exposure information, which they would then use in their cameras. In 1938, Kodak introduced a film camera with an integrated light meter and in 1962, a Japanese company called “Topcon” introduced the first SLR camera that measured the light coming through the lens into the camera. What this meant, was that photographers no longer needed to carry special light meters with them – the camera would do it for them. New “Automatic” camera modes started appearing on cameras, which would evaluate the amount of light that passed through the lens and would automatically pick the right exposure parameters to produce a properly-exposed picture.

Today, most digital cameras have various types of camera modes that can be used in different situations. While most point and shoot cameras concentrate on automatic modes for simplicity’s sake, more advanced cameras feature modes that allow both automatic and manual exposure control.

Types of Camera Modes

Here are the four main types of camera modes that can be found in most digital cameras today:

1. Program (P)
2. Shutter Priority (Tv) or (S)
3. Aperture Priority (Av) or (A)
4. Manual (M)

What About Other Camera Modes?

Many of the entry-level and semi-professional cameras have other modes such as “Portrait”, “Landscape”, “Macro”, “Sports” and “Night”, depending on the camera (professional cameras do NOT have these modes). I won’t go through any of these modes for three reasons:

1. They are simply a combination of the above four modes plus some camera-specific settings
2. Different cameras have different custom modes and you should not get used to any of them. If you ever switch to a different camera brand or get a professional camera, you might get lost, just because you relied too much on a specific custom mode.
3. All of these custom modes are evil 🙂 Stop using them and learn the four main camera modes explained in this article.

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