HP PhotoSmart R817, PhotoSmart R818 User Manual

HP Photosmart Digital Cameras

Technical Backgrounder

Theatre Mode

What is HP Theatre Mode

Theatre mode is a special photography mode in your HP Photosmart R817 or R818 digital
camera that is designed to easily let you take effective photographs in a “Theatre” like setting
such as a theater, museum, sporting event, church. Typically, when people take photos at an
event like a school play – the camera flash fires and the image captured is of the backs of the
heads audience members. The stage is usually a dark distant scene. If you remember to turn
off your flash – then usually the camera will switch to a long shutter time and the photograph
will be blurry either because you moved the camera or whatever you were photographing
moved.

In HP Theatre mode the camera is programmed in a way that will enhance the ability of the
camera to capture that distant stage scene without motion blur and without photographing
everybody around you. Because a Theatre is a very challenging environment for a camera,
not every photo will turn out so be sure to take several. Since the camera sound, focus assist
light and flash is off – you won’t bother fellow audience members.

How does HP Theatre Mode work?

In Theatre mode, the camera is set to operate in several special ways.

• Flash, auto focus assist light and sounds are turned off.

• Shutter speed is allowed to automatically vary, but is prevented from dropping too far to

prevent motion blur and the aperture is opened for maximum light gathering.

• The ISO rating of the camera is increased beyond what is normally available, increasing
the camera sensitivity to light.

• Camera exposure metering is optimized for the rather special lighting circumstances in
a Theatre – such as a bright stage in a dark room.

• HP Adaptive Tone Mapping is utilized to further enhance and balance the contrast of
this special scene.

• HP Adaptive Noise Filtering and Sharpening are optimized for the low light situation.

Some of these setting could be set using manual, shutter or aperture modes – but not all of
them – and it would take a number of special settings. HP Theatre mode does it all
automatically.

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Some Examples

The following images show the effect of theatre mode. All photos were taken without using a
tripod and the HP R817 camera.

This pictured was taken with the camera set

to Auto mode, but with flash forced off to

prevent it from firing. While the camera

adjusts for the proper exposure, the long

shutter time means that the photo is blurred

because the people on the stage moved and

the camera moved slightly during the photo.

The same scene taken in Theatre Mode on

the HP Photosmart R817 camera.

Note how the feeling of a theatre scene is

preserved and how the people on the stage

are properly exposed but not blurred.

This picture shows the results of using

Theatre Mode on the HP Photosmart R817 to

take a photograph using the optical zoom

function on the camera. Using optical zoom

in this situation is even more challenging as

less light is gathered by the lens and motion

of the camera is accentuated. This is a shot

that would be very difficult if not impossible to

get using a traditional camera.

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