Learning Your Camera Part II
Program Mode
The next setting to learn on your camera is the program option. This will nearly be universal to the letter P. Using your camera in Program mode is just another step to manual mode adulthood! I still occasionally use the Program mode if I am in a situation where I do not have time to get set up in Manual mode the way I would like to.
Program mode still leaves a bit of control to the camera, but gives you some input on three key areas. Flash, ISO, and White Balance. We will dive deeper into these topics in other posts, but I will give a basic explanation here.
Flash: Pretty simple. In Program mode the flash will not be on unless you tell it to. The flash can be turned on by locating the little lightning bolt and pressing it. Your on camera flash will pop up and fire when you press the shutter release.
ISO: This simply indicates the light sensitivity of the sensor on your camera. For those who have shot with film, the ISO term will be familiar in terms of how fast of film you were using. Some higher end dSLR cameras can be set to as low as ISO 50. Most will be able to be set to a low of ISO 100. Depending on how new your camera is and what model, the ISO can be set quite high for low lighting conditions. Another option will be Auto, which gives control back to the camera to figure out what it thinks you want. We will cover ISO more in other posts.
White Balance: This topic goes back to our post on the Human Eye. Our eyes are incredible instruments that have the ability to adjust to different circumstances. Our cameras are incredible instruments that need help sometimes. Light has different color (temperature) properties. If we leave the camera in complete control over WB it may get it wrong and give you an improper color cast in your images. Or perhaps you want to use a certain WB to give a creative/artistic effect to your photograph. We will also cover WB more in other posts.
by nljohnson