What’s That Green Box Doing, Anyways?

June 11, 2008

photo tip image When we get our first digital camera, one of the first things we look for is that little green box. It’s like a comforting little binky, saying “Hey there, don’t worry! I’ve got a green box mode, so leave it to me to take great pictures for you every time!”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.

There are some good reasons to use green box mode (also known as ‘fully automatic’). If you are out and about and need a quick shot just to document the moment, it’s great. Creatively, however, it’s incredibly limiting.

When you use automatic mode, the camera has to decide on a number of things. What value to set for the ISO. What to set the shutter speed and aperture to. Where to focus the lens. All questions that need to be answered quickly, because your cousin’s toothy grin won’t hold out all day.

The tough part in all of this is that the camera is guessing what part of the picture is important to you. If you are taking a shot of a flower in a field, what should the camera expose for - the flower, the field, the sky? It has to make a guess, and it usually thinks that the last thing you want in the picture is an overexposed sky. However, that may be the least important thing to you!

How else would this happen? Say you are taking a shot of your kids in the middle of the day outside, and you want to avoid using the flash. The camera focuses on them, but sees the bright sky behind them and cranks down the exposure. Your are either left with a severely underexposed image, or an image where the camera used the flash when it didn’t need to.

There are 3 aspects of every picture that you control: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Learn those, and you will have the ability to take incredible pictures. We’ll cover all of those in future articles and videos, but for now just be aware that they exist.

In the meantime, notice that there are other modes on your camera, and experiment with them. You will get more mileage out of experimenting with Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority rather than using their presets like Night, Action, etc. You should also try specifically turning off the flash. The holy grail of all of this is Manual mode, and once you get there, you will absolutely love it!

Eventually, you will look at that little green box as the last choice, rather than the first one!