Camera modes - what you should know

You know those scene mode settings on your digital camera? Do you ever use them?

The portrait mode is supposed to give better separation between face and background. On the other hand, the landscape mode should make everything sharply in focus, from nearest rock to most distant mountain, and at the same time enhance blues and greens.

The macro mode is for sharp close-ups of the grasshopper's eye, while the sport mode stops the action in mid-jump.

Not to mention the slimming mode that trims kilograms from the subject and the stupid smile mode that prevents the shutter firing until it sees a grin.

When one of these scene modes is selected, the camera automatically sets the best combination of shutter speed, aperture, colour saturation and ISO speed for the shot.

We have not been impressed with the usefulness of scene modes that we have encountered. Our Canon EOS 40D SLR has scene settings but we would never use the portrait mode because it automatically activates the flash in situations where it is not needed.

We know enough about cameras to be able to select our own shutter-aperture combinations for separation of face from background.

Our Samsung ST550 goes one step further with portrait mode and provides several beauty settings that are supposed to turn an ordinary snapshot into a glamour photograph fit for Vogue. It doesn't work, for the simple reason that in choosing portrait mode you lose the most important control on the camera - exposure compensation.

The Olympus E-P1 has two portrait modes. The first is the conventional wide-aperture, warm-saturation combination. The second mode is called ePortrait, which works by recording a portrait image and then post-processing in the camera to smooth skin texture and remove blemishes, while keeping eyes and hair sharp.

A chap writes that after his wife had seen her face in Olympus ePortrait, she insisted that is the way it must always be. For our taste, we think the smoothing is too radical and the resulting skin Barbie-doll plastic.

Some Olympus cameras, including the E-P1, have another set of effects, called art filters. We have been sceptical of these in the past, preferring to add our special effects after the event, in Photoshop.

However, we are starting to see some merit in the filters, which consist of pop art (exaggerated colour saturation), soft focus, grainy black and white and a couple of tone-altering settings. There is even a pinhole camera simulation.

We like the soft focus. This works as a glamour effect on a portrait, producing a romantic soft glow around the subject. Of course, it works best with female subjects - males look merely out of focus.

This is the only camera mode we use frequently and with pleasure. As for the rest, we still think it is better to understand a camera and adjust the settings ourselves.