When professional photographers take pictures of fireworks, a night sky, or a local football game they have made numerous adjustments to assure a quality image despite the special lighting conditions. A faster shutter speed to capture action, a wider aperture to allow more light in from a darkened scene, and so forth are necessary in many circumstances. Even that photo taken in the living room on Christmas morning has much different lighting than the shot taken of the kids running out through the snow covered landscape later that same day. Clearly, changes in the settings on the digital camera are what can allow such diverse shots to produce acceptable images.

It is few amateurs who wish to take the time to select all of the appropriate settings on a camera for each shot, and few as well who choose to purchase a camera with many manual controls. Luckily however, many digital camera models have scene modes that are readily available at the push of a button. These pre-programmed settings allow beginners to successfully adjust to the variety of conditions in which we wish to shoot. Once a camera is selected with these scene modes, it is merely a matter of determining which of them is appropriate for a given shot.