What the Symbols on Your Digicam Mean


If you got your hands on a retro digicam in the past few years or even more recently, you’ve probably noticed a lot of different things on the camera. I mean, what do all those buttons do? Well, there’s a really good explanation that I’ve written for you and that I’m reviving to help you all out.

For more useful photography tips, click here. This article has information from a piece that I’ve done back in 2010. And it fits this article perfectly because it’s designed for new photographers getting into the art form.

ISO

What ISO is/means is essentially the brightness allowed in the photo. Here’s the break-down: ISO goes in ranges on point and shoots from 50-3200. The lower the number, the darker the image and the better quality. The higher the number, the brighter the image and the poorer the quality. As a general rule of thumb, use lower ISOs in bright light and higher ones in darker light.

The Flower and Mountain Symbol

These symbols stand for your focusing. Focusing tells you what in your image will be clear and what will be blurry. For example, if you want to take a picture of your kid, then you need to make sure your kid is in focus and not the tree behind him.

Flower = Macro (we’re going to call this close-up). Close up focusing is for when you want to bring your camera lens really close up to your lucky penny to snap a photo of it. Also good for taking pictures of insides of flowers or your dog’s nose.

Mountain = Infinity (we’re going to call it far away). This is for when you’re trekking out in the mountains and are too far away to take a picture of a mountain.

Usually, Auto Focus works totally fine more most applications.

The Lightning Bolt Symbol

This is your flash symbol. It tells you what type of flash it will allow. If it has the word auto or an “a” next to it, it means auto flash. This is good for general purposes.

If it has the word fill next to it, it means fill flash. This will be very, very bright on a point and shoot.

If there is a circle with a line through it, it means turn the flash off.

If there is an eye next to it, it means red-eye flash. It will compensate for red-eye.

The Circle With a Line Inside

Delay shooting, or lack there of is what this symbol means. Usually it will allow you to choose no delay (immediate shooting) two seconds (a 2 next to the symbol) or ten seconds (a 10 next to the symbol). These are great for when you have no one to take a picture of everyone.

The Play Button

The little triangle is your review button. Figure it this way: this is the same play button that you see on your Spotify or Apple music when you go to play a song. It serves the same purpose, it lets you play back your images. You can press it again to get out of playback or press your shutter button down.

Three Stacked Rectangles

This is your shooting speed, otherwise known as your drive move. For example, one rectangle usually means one frame for every time the shutter button is held down. Three rectangles mean continuous shooting: so it will keep shooting as long as the shutter button is held down. Three rectangles with an H next to it means high speed. You’ll get smaller images, but you’ll be able to catch Superman flying at full speed away from Chuck Norris.

The Buttons Placed Around In Circular Fashion

You’ll most likely notice this. The camera manufacturers did this purposefully as each button serves a different purpose. Here it is: The left button makes you scroll left through the menus, the right scrolls to the right, up scrolls up, etc.

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris’s editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He’s the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He’s fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he’s legally blind./

HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men’s lifestyle and tech. He’s a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He’s also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like “Secret Order of the Slice.”

PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others.

EXPERIENCE:
Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he’s evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he’s done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, WordPress, and other things.

EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he’s learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc.

FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn’t get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don’t do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.



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