The Villages Loc: The Villages, Florida

Wondering - Some cameras, like the Nikon D750, have scene mode selections. I believe when the mode is selected, it tunes the camera for the best combination of setting to achieve the best picture results.

When chosen, what triangle settings are modified? All of them? ISO, aperture, shutter speed?

Appreciate your input.

Saycheeze Loc: Ct

Yes all 3 are changed/set to create the desired effect you have chosen

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've never used them, but maybe I should give them a try. Something like "Sports" would, no doubt, raise the shutter speed. "Night" would probably increase aperture.

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

Years back I used the Landscape mode for most of my travel shots. But I was doing many from the seat of a traveling motorcycle and not doing any post processing or knew how. Have not played with them in years but they did produce for me in that time period.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

It depends on which scene mode is selected, and how each is programmed. You can get a general idea by performing tests under various conditions and analyzing how the camera reacts in each mode. Focusing is sometimes part of the scene mode characteristics as well - for example, infinity focus for the landscape scene mode.

When using my point & shoot pocket camera which lacks direct controls for aperture and shutter speed, I sometimes use a scene mode to "force" the camera to select a particular aperture or shutter speed value I want for the shot. Of course to do this, one must first fully understand what each scene mode does.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

They can be a learning tool if you actually look for yourself to see what settings the camera is giving you, and think about why. Then you can learn to choose your own settings according to your shooting conditions.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Another example is "portrait" where the depth of field will be shallow and the focus softer. But it's not just the shutter speed, ISO and aperture: you may find differences in sharpness and color saturation. I'm pretty sure "sunset" has more vibrant colors.

They can be fun to try, though limiting if ultimately you want to be the boss of the camera

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

LOL, that's what I did, but my current cameras don't have that feature. Hopefully I'm smarter now!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Basically "scene modes" are a carry over from "point n shoot" compact cameras, for people who can't be troubled to learn how to use a DSLR and choose the settings themselves.

Scene modes are one small step away from the full "Auto" mode... similar to that, but slightly tailored to use settings that some programmer somewhere has decided are "correct" for that particular type of photograph.

Scene modes such as "sports", "landscape", "portrait" and others do a lot more than just control exposure factors such as ISO, shutter speed and aperture. They also usually force you to use certain autofocus setup, only allow auto white balance, set the frame rate, activate built-in flash in some cases or not allow it to fire in others, won't allow you to use exposure compensation and may even only allow JPEGs to be saved. Scene modes probably also set profiles such as contrast, sharpness, saturation.

For example, I would bet that "portrait" mode uses a larger aperture, single frame and single-shot focus, might even enable face recognition on cameras that have it, and uses a rather neutral profile with lower levels of sharpening. I imagine "sports" will use a higher shutter speed to freeze movement, set the camera to the fastest continuous shooting rate and to continuous focus, and use a more saturated and sharpened profile. "Landscape" probably uses a small aperture, single frame rate and single-shot focus, and a saturated, highly sharpened profile.

You should check in more detail how any given model implements scene modes, then decide if you really want to use them.

Personally I avoid them like the plague. In fact, my two main cameras don't even have scene modes.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Sometimes out of curiosity I will use Sunset on a sunset in addition to P Mode just to see what it does. Sometimes I’m surprised at the result.

SoftLights Loc: New Orleans, LA

Interesting question. I don't recall ever using a scene mode. I have an 'after holidays' party to shoot in mid January with about 500 people in attendance sitting at tables with 2 to 10 couples per table, milling around, dancing etc. Have any of you guys used the 'party mode' for shooting small groups?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Linda--you are on the right track here. "Scene modes" (or whatever they might be called by brand) are generally provided on consumer grade digital cameras. We had two of them at the plant where I worked...a Nikon D40 and one of the Nikon "Coolpix" cameras. So I had to learn how to use them. Turns out that these modes are not part of the exposure system, and I found that they did not affect exposure choices at all. Rather, they are an alternative to "Picture Control" or "Image Control" choices that are available on many higher grade cameras. As you state, they control parameters like Sharpness, Saturation, and three or four related choices that modify the overall character of images. For instance, Portrait reduces both saturation and sharpness by quite a bit, and makes some other small adjustments. The mode with the flower icon (can't remember what it was called) moves saturation and sharpness the other direction and makes some other adjustments. Landscape and other modes make other, generally appropriate adjustments. It is actually a pretty good way to quickly make some basic camera adjustments that give surprisingly good results. I can't remember offhand if White Balance was one of the adjustments or not, but it seems that some of the choices were geared to indoors and some to outdoors.

I found the capability to quite often be useful, because we did not have or take the time to do any further processing of our images. High saturation and sharpness were desirable when taking photographs of machinery less when we were taking pictures of people. Generally, though, these were not cameras that we were necessarily using for critical photography...the D40 was about 6 MP, and the Coolpix was a little less than that. Highest available ISO was, I think, around 400, and results at that speed were pretty grainy.

The D200 that I bought for myself at about the same time that the plant bought these cameras did not have scene options on the control wheel. It was used to select single or continuous exposure, the self timer, and other functions useful to more advanced photographers and not available at all on either the D40 or the Coolpix. Similar adjustments were available, however, through the menu via Image Control, which is still available today on the D850. Skilled use of that menu item allows changing very quickly between good post processing starting points for portraits versus landscapes, for instance.