1. A portable electronic device, comprising: a digital camera comprising a stereo camera pair of a first camera and a second camera; a system control for the digital camera configured to control the digital camera to operate in a stereo image capture mode in which both cameras of the stereo camera pair capture images and a power savings mode in which one camera of the stereo camera pair captures images, a determination of the mode in which to operate the digital camera is made by executing instructions with the system control to: capture a first image of a scene with the first camera; determine if the first image of the scene contains one of characteristics a scene with low parallax or characteristics of a scene with high parallax; in response to determining that the scene contains characteristics of a scene with high parallax, capture stereo pair images of the scene with the first and second cameras and determine if the scene in the stereo pair images includes parallax greater than a predetermined threshold; and operate the digital camera in i) the power savings mode if one of a) the first image of the scene contains characteristics of a scene with low parallax, or b) the stereo pair images includes parallax less than the predetermined threshold; or ii) the stereo image capture mode if the stereo pair images includes parallax greater than the predetermined threshold.