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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.
