Burst Mode

This is the ninth post in a series about 10 Cool Features of Your Digital Camera You Should Know and Use.  Of course, I'm only up to the 5th feature.

In my personal history in photography I've always referred to the taking of several photos in rapid sequence as "burst" mode.  You may open your manual looking for burst and never find it but that doesn't mean your camera doesn't have it.  I looked in four different camera manuals and found three different names for the same thing.  (To be fair, two of the manuals were the same brand and used the same word.)  I found "Burst Mode", "Sequential Shooting" and "Continuous Shooting" so you may need to be creative in finding it in your manual.  Of course you can start searching through the index with the three I just listed but if you don't find it don't give up.  Go to either the Table of Contents or the index and start looking until you find something that looks like it might mean "taking several photos in rapid sequence". 

The idea behind using Burst Mode is usually to try to catch the peak of action but often it is to catch the series to record specific images of action that are happening fairly quickly.  Well, why not just use Movie Mode?  In fact sometimes that may be the best way, but remember that it is very likely that your movie mode is much lower quality than your still mode.  There are cameras out there that shoot Movie Mode at a resolution of 320 X 240 which translates to a small fraction of a megapixel.  On the other hand some of the new cameras shoot in High Definition (HD).  Those can be as high as 1080 X 720 which is still only about 3/4 of one megapixel.  Most newer digital cameras are at least 8 or 9 times higher resolution.  That is not the only reason however.  In movie mode most cameras automatically set the shutter speed to slower than 1/60th of a second, so in reality any images involving action are probably slightly blurred.  Your eye doesn't see that as you watch the video, but stop most Movie Mode frames and you will see motion blur.

Another way of saying all that is that in Burst Mode -or whatever your camera calls it- you should get a sharper, better image.



These were all shot at 1/640th of a second, or more than 10 times faster than in Movie Mode.

Even with the high speed action of a golf swing you can see the ball headed out toward the fairway and you can see the tee flipping through the air. If this were in movie mode the club would be all but invisible because of it's speed and forget about seeing the ball or the tee at all.

Serious golfers and coaches like to see the follow-through as well. It tells them a lot about the efficiency of the swing.


You may not be trying to improve your golf swing, or maybe you are. Maybe you're just trying to capture the fun times with your kids growing up. Whatever it is, get your manual out and find out if you can capture some quick shots in rapid sequence and start practicing.

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