This category is assigned when the Intelligent Auto software
determines that the subject appears to be significantly close to the lens and
the camera obtains focus on the subject. This second point is very important.
If the camera cannot obtain focus on a close-up subject, the Intelligent Auto
category will not be set to i-Macro and the shutter-release button will be
disabled from being fully pressed to take the picture. How close is close? It
ends up that in order for the picture to be considered in the macro category,
the subject should be about 0.3 meters or about 1 foot away from the camera
when using the standard 14-42 mm f/3.5-f/5.6 lens included with the G2 camera.
When the camera obtains focus on the subject, its software will
attempt to close down the aperture to increase the depth of field and ensure
that the subject and its surroundings appear sharp. In close-up work, the depth
of field is very narrow, so objects rapidly lose sharpness as their distance
from the plane of focus increases or decreases. When a close-up of a butterfly
is photographed, its body may be recorded in detail, but its wings become
blurred. Because of this, i-Macro will bias its setting to prioritize maximum depth
of field. This may require a long shutter speed, and it may be necessary to
steady the camera by using a tripod or placing the camera on a solid surface.
The Intelligent Auto software
has the ability to identify rich red- and orange-hued sunset (and sunrise)
scenes. Unfortunately, we were unable to capture this category during our
testing of the camera and we presume this was because our local sunsets and
sunrises lack sufficient coloring to generate this category. If you intend to
take a picture of a sunset and it is not registering in Intelligent Auto Mode,
switch over to the Scene Mode option on the mode dial and set the specific
scene type to Sunset. This will ensure that the camera is set to capture the
scene and emphasize the rich reds and oranges commonly displayed in beautiful
sunsets.
This is a three-step process. As in the case of i-Portraits, the
camera must be able to first identify that it there is a face in the image and
obtain focus. Then the camera must recognize that the face is registered within
the camera’s memory. The third step is to check the registered face’s age by
using the stored birth date. This is the same process as what occurs with
Portraits. If the person’s calculated age is 3 years old or younger, she is
classified as a baby and will be assigned the i-Baby category.
This category causes the camera to adjust for a softer flash—less
disturbing for the baby. As with i-Portrait, the camera’s software will display
an R within the i-Baby icon along with both the baby’s registered name and age
on the display screen. This information will be stored with the picture for use
in future playback, printing, and downloading to your PC (with the latter two
depending on the software used).
This Intelligent Auto category
is chosen only when videos are recorded in low-light environments. While the
camera’s software can adjust its settings to capture more light for still
pictures, videos do not have the same flexibility. As an example, the i-Macro
category may be identified when you’re framing a picture, but when you switch
over to video and the lighting that was sufficient for a Macro picture in
Intelligent Auto is not sufficient for the video; the camera will display the
i-Low Light icon instead. So i-Low Light is a common Intelligent Auto category
for video recording.
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