Sony A33: Portrait Scene Modes

In spur of the moment shooting situations when you don’t have time to adjust in-camera settings, use the scene selection mode (page 63 of the A33 manual) to capture portraits.

• Portrait mode
• Night portrait mode

Credit: MacVicar - Photo Gallery

Portrait mode

This mode will automatically choose a low aperture f/number which creates a shallow depth of field or small area in focus (great for isolating your subject against a smooth background).

Night portrait mode

This mode slows the shutter speed down to expose the background and illuminates your subject using the built-in flash. This helps eliminate the “black background” effect when shooting in low light. This mode also works really well indoors.

To enable either mode, just rotate the mode dial to the SCN position, select the center (AF) button and use the up/down controls to select portrait or night portrait.

By default the flash is set to Auto for both of these portrait modes. If you want to disable the flash, just select the Fn button, highlight the flash icon, and select the ‘Flash Off’ option.

Face detection (page 93 of the manual) is enabled and it’ll automatically detect up to eight faces inside the frame. You can also enable the smile shutter feature (page 94 of the manual) which will capture an image the moment it detects a smile. You can also adjust the smile sensitivity settings to slight, normal or big smile.

On a side note…ISO, white balance and focus mode are set to ‘Auto’ and can’t be adjusted when using both of these portrait scene modes.

Check the Sony A33 homepage for more tips, advice and recommendations. Happy shooting!