Avoid The Green

it seems like everything is about being green this days. Green cars. Green homes. However, there’s one piece of green that you want to stay away from, and that’s the green box mode on your camera!

Sure, it’s great when you’re new to photography and just bought a camera. You might have even taken the camera out of the bag on the way home and taken pictures of traffic cameras taking pictures of you. Green box mode is great for that. But there are reasons you want to avoid it like the modern day gadget plague that it is. But first, some back-story.

Fully automatic mode, affectionately labeled here as “green box mode”, is designed to make your camera truly point and shoot. It takes all of the guesswork out of photography for you, and, in a snap-judgement decision, decides the best settings for each picture you take.

It does have real-world benefits. If you need a quick shot to remember how your brother looked when he was passed out at your wedding, it’s great for that. But this column is about improving your photography, so let’s look at the options.

The good news is that you can experiment with different modes and still have the camera on automatic for the remaining settings. This works on all DSLRs and most pocket digital cameras. To get started, start from green box mode, take a deep breath, and try these other modes.

Shutter Priority (also shown as Tv) - This tells the camera that you are most interested in the shutter speed, and it can set everything else. You would use this mode if you were interested in playing with motion (either stopping it, or emphasizing it). For example, if you wanted to stop water from a water fountain so that you could see individual droplets, flip the camera to Shutter Priority and set the shutter speed really high (1/500th of a second or higher). Alternately, if you want to see a nice, blurry smoothness of the water, set your shutter speed low (1/30th of a second or slower). You will probably need a tripod or a steady surface to set the camera on when you are taking pictures with slow shutter speeds.

Aperture Priority (also shown as Av) - This mode tells the camera that you are most interested in what parts of your image are in focus, besides what you actually focused on. Smaller numbers (like 2.8) mean that less of your image is in focus. Larger numbers, like 16, mean that more of the scene will be in focus.

The three ‘pillars’ of controlling your image are shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Practicing with the two modes above will help you better understand how they work, and we’ll cover ISO in an upcoming article.

Of course, everything comes with a caveat, and here’s mine: your ability to experiment with the different modes will depend on the amount of light in your scene. For example, trying to set the shutter speed high as listed above will not work if the scene is too dark. Try that technique in the middle of the day outside. Additionally, trying to use a low aperture like 2.8 may not work outside, because it may be too bright, and your picture may be way overexposed.

There are big-time technical reasons why these things happen, but just experiment and you’ll start to understand why. Also, your camera/lens may not support an aperture as low as 2.8, or a shutter speed as high as 1/2000th of a second, etc. Be aware of what your gear can do.

Have you experimented with shutter speeds or apertures on your camera? What were your results? Tell us in the comments area below!

Eric Doggett is a photographer in Austin, Texas. He has a site specifically for baby photography tips at ShootTheBaby.com, as well as BoxOfficeBaby.com, a site where you can order custom birth/party announcement posters - a unique gift newborn children can keep forever. You can reach him at babydaddy -at- ShootTheBaby.com.