Automatic Mode: Auto mode tells your camera to use its best judgement to select shutter speed. Aperture, ISO, white balance, focus and flash to take the best shot that it can.
Portrait Mode: When switching to this mode it will automatically select a large portrait aperture which helps to keep your background out of focus, ensuring your subject is the only thing in focus and is therefore the Centre of attention in the shot.
Macro Mode: Lets you move closer into your subject to take a close-up picture – when you use macro mode, you will notice that focusing is more difficult as at short distances the depth of field is very narrow
Landscape Mode: It sets the camera up with a small aperture to make sure as much of the scene you are photographing will be in focus as possible.
Sport Mode: Sports mode attempts to freeze the action by increasing the shutter speed. When photographing fast moving subjects you can also increase your chances of capturing them by planning your camera along with the subject and/or by attempting to pre focus your camera on a spot where the subject will be when you want to photograph it
Night Mode: Night mode is for shooting in low light situations and sets your camera to use a longer shutter speed to help capture details of the background, but it also fires off a flash to illuminate the foreground.
Movie Mode: This mode extends your digital camera from just capturing still images to capturing moving ones. The quality is not up to video camera standards, but it is a handy mode to have when you come across that perfect subject that just cannot be captured with a still image.
Aperture Priority Mode (A or AV) Mode: Aperture priority mode is useful when you are looking to control the depth of field in a shot. Choosing a larger number aperture means the aperture is smaller and lets less light in.
Shutter Priority Mode (S or TV): the mode where you select a shutter speed, and the camera then chooses all the other settings. You would use this mode where you want to control over shutter speed. For example, when photographing moving subjects, you might want to choose a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion.
Program Mode (P): priority mode in addition to auto mode. In those cameras that have both, Program mode is like Auto but gives you a little more control over some other features including flash, white balance, ISO etc.
Manual Mode: mode you have full control over your camera and need to think about all settings including shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, flash etc. It gives you the flexibility to set your shots up as you wish.