Index of Terminology
1st curtain sync
The Flash is fires at the start of the exposure, freezing the subject and creating motion blurs afterwards.
2nd curtain sync
The Flash fires at the end of the exposure, creating motion blurs first and freezing the subject at the latest moment.
Ambient light
The light that is not controlled or the light that lights the background, more than the subject.
Analogue
Analogue or film technology works directly with light and light-sensitive film. The picture is taken fully optically, no digital sensor that would limit the image resolution is involved.
Angle of View (or Field of View)
An angle of the scene your camera can capture with a given focal length. The longer the focal length, the smaller the FOV (telephoto).
Anti-shake
A feature of most modern cameras to avoid camera-shake blurs on images. It works as a live image cropper. You do not shoot the actual whole image the camera sees, but a portion of it. The rest of the image that you do not shoot is used by the camera to be cropped down live and have the actual image stay in one place.
There is also mechanical anti-shake that controls the lenses, which is far more effective than digital. There is also an option for hybrid (smart) image stabilizer (anti-shake) which is the best option.
Aperture value (A or Av)
The aperture value is given by a division number and the f (focal length). A large aperture is a small value: f/1.8 and a small aperture is a large value: f/16.
Bokeh
A japanese word, which means blur. People refer to the blurred light effects in the out-of-focus parts of an image.
CCD (Charge-Coupled Device)
A digital image (light) sensor that picks up light and colors. There are cameras that have 1 CCD, in these all of the image is recognized by a single sensor. There are cameras that have 3 CCDs, where the 3 sensors recognize different colors (Red Green and Blue) and creates the color image that way, giving a more colorful and a better-contrast image.
Compact
A camera type that does not have an interchangable lens or an optical viewfinder. Instead they use static focus or built-in zoom lens, and a liveview LCD screen or a glass see-through viewfinder.
Depth of Field (DOF)
The distance range in your scene that falls into the acceptable sharpness range. Smaller aperture settings give you wider, while larger apertures give you smaller DOF. Focus point also determines (contracts or extends) the DOF.
Digital
Digital is a term that the computerized world uses often. It means that incoming analogue (or digital) data is only accepted if the values fall between a certain range. This is barely noticable (if the analogue signal is quite clear), but it is there in e.g.: television-broadcasts, radios, sound outputs. If a bit of signal (e.g.: noise) is too low, it is dropped and the "line" of data is silenced at that point. In photography, this means that images that got their parts burned out (over-whitened by light) cannot be restored. (Same for dark parks.) If the white value is white, it will stay white. Of course there is touch-up and repainting, but that is not as good as an analogue negative image, where you'd have the possibility to reduce light and dim the image.
Digital Zoom
A live image-enlargement feature, often put into digital cameras and camcorders to close-in on distant objects. (Especially when there is no or little optical zoom availalbe.) It generates a quite ugly "pixelated" (squared) effect and should not be used in professional environments in any ways.
Distortion
The parts of the image that are curved because of the curvy nature of lenses. Telephoto lenses have least and landscape lenses have most of it. (Long and short lenses.)
Exposure
The image creation technology that makes a light-sensitive film capture the scene that is focused on it by a series of lenses. This also includes the aperture setup jumping into place and the shutter curtains giving way to light.
Exposure Value (EV)
The amount of light needed for the picture to be well shot (exposed). The full definition can be found in the Exposure section.
Field of View (FOV or Angle of View)
An angle of the scene your camera can capture with the given focal length. The longer the f the smaller the FOV.
Film
A light sensitive plastic roll that is wound by a mechanism (or the photographer in older cameras). The film captures the image which later will need to be developed to get the picture shown on the film and later on paper.
Filters
A filter is a (mostly) glass-made, round metal framed object that mounts onto your camera lens. Filters are designed to modify the image you capture, before you capture it. With this opportunity, you can create interesting effects and make different versions of pictures.
Fix F
These lenses cannot change their focal length and therefore cannot zoom. Fix F lenses are a bit more stable than zoom lenses but not in all cases. Fix F only excludes some movement of lenses.
Flash
Flash is the most basic of lighting equipments. It is usually built in to modern cameras, but there are also external ones and ones that are standing far away from the camera on stands. Flashes fire when the 1st curtain of the SLR camera completely opens. On compacts it is timed digitally.
Flash blackout
An effect that occurs when the shutter speed is faster than the flash sync speed.
Flash sync
Flash sync speed is fastest shutter speed when the 2nd shutter curtain does not begin to pull up before the 1st curtain is completely open. This on most machines is around 1/250th sec.
Focal length (F)
Focal length is the distance between the outmost lens and the media (film or sensor) that receives the light.
Focus
Focus is the point of distance where your camera lens is calibrated to make sharpest picture. Your DOF is also determined by your focus point.
f-Stop (f/n where n is a number)
f-Stop is the aperture value expressed in divisions of the lens'es focal length. E.g.: the focal length is 50mm and the aperture is f/5.6, the resulting aperture size will become:8,92mm.
Full-Stop
One Full Stop is an exposure value determiner. Each scene you photograph has an appropriate EV. If you choose a camera setting that gives 1 less stop, it will be under-exposed. If you choose one that is 1 more stop, it will be over-exposed. Full stops can be given or taken by changing: Aperture, Shutter speed or ISO.
Hybrid
A type of camera that does not have a mirror, but has an aperture in the lens. Creates better pictures than compact cameras but does not reach the quality or reliability of an SLR.
ISO
ISO (International Standards Organization) is the value of sensitivity. A lower ISO setting or value of a film need more light to be affective, while a high ISO needs less light. High ISO number are better for darker shots, and lower ISO numbers are better for daylight.
Key light
The light source that lights the subject and is stronger or of equal power with the ambient light.
LCD
Liquid Crystal Display. A flat display type often used in Digital cameras as well to provide a live view of the picture that is to be captured and to provide a screen for digital menu systems.
Lenses
The optical series of lens that provide focus and other optical means to take pictures. They can be telephoto, medium lens, or wide angle, or even macro lens. Fix focal length or zoom lens.
Light meter (LM)
A device that gives an example usable EV setup to be used in your camera.
MegaPixels (MP)
Million Pixels (pixels are the smallest parts of a digital screen). The resolution of a digital camera is often given in this value. E.g.: if a camera can take pictures of 1600x1200 pixel resolution, that is a roughly 1,9MP camera ~2MP.
Memory Card
A small and portable data storage device often used in digital cameras. Memory cards don't loose their contents once the device is turned off or batteries removed, or the card is taken out of the camera.
Mirror (SLR)
In SLR cameras a mirror is responsible for creating the image in the viewfinder. The mirror flips away once the exposure button is pressed, to give way for light to reach the media.
Pentaprism
A five-sided prism that transfers the image coming from the lens and through the mirror and making it reach the viewfinder.
Red-Eye
Red-eye effect is caused by the flash being too close to the camera lens. This effect happens often on compacts, not so much on SLRs where flash sits quite a few cms above the lenses.
Reflection Angle
Reflection angle is the angle in which light continues its path from a reflective surface. This is most often found in red-eye problems, where the reflection angle is too small. Make it larger, the red-eye disappears.
Shutter curtain
A set of 2 curtains that hide the light from reaching the media or sensor before exposure. The first curtain reaching top fires the flash. The 2nd curtain goes off when the bottom of the media has been exposed long enough according to shutter speed. If needed, the 2nd curtain will go off before the 1st finishes its way up, thus creating the shorter shutter speeds and also the flash-blackout effect.
Shutter speed (S or Tv)
The fraction of time for which the shutter curtains expose the media to light.
SLR (Single Lens Reflex)
SLR cameras come with a mirror, a pentaprism, an optical viewfinder and interchangable lenses. These properties describe the camera best. SLRs expose the media by setting the aperture to the desired setting, flipping the mirror up from the way, then exposing with the help of the 2-piece shutter curtain set.
Tog
Slang, refers to "phoTOGrapher".
Touchup
Touchup is also called post-production. It is a digital way of enhancing poor or not good enough quality pictures to preserve its contents. Analogue pictures can also be subject to touch-up, either by scanning it into computer, or by using analogue lab-techniques to re-develop the images.
TTL metering
TTL = Through The Lens, which means the camera metering system. The light meter within your camera meters the amount of light entering the lens (which is the light reflected from your subjects), not the strength of the light source(s)!
ViewFinder (VF)
The ViewFinder is the glassy "hole" in the camera which you look into to find what view of a scene you'd like to capture. For compacts and hybrids this is mostly an LCD screen or a see-through glass window. For SLRs the lenses, mirrors and the pentaprism give you a direct view of what is to be captured.
Zoom (or Vario)
The varied position of lenses, giving a smaller or larger focal length. Variable focal length lenses (zoom lenses) can be used for many purpose, from normal photography (e.g.: streets) to telephoto (e.g.: portraits) due to their variable nature (e.g.: 60mm-150mm)
The Flash is fires at the start of the exposure, freezing the subject and creating motion blurs afterwards.
2nd curtain sync
The Flash fires at the end of the exposure, creating motion blurs first and freezing the subject at the latest moment.
Ambient light
The light that is not controlled or the light that lights the background, more than the subject.
Analogue
Analogue or film technology works directly with light and light-sensitive film. The picture is taken fully optically, no digital sensor that would limit the image resolution is involved.
Angle of View (or Field of View)
An angle of the scene your camera can capture with a given focal length. The longer the focal length, the smaller the FOV (telephoto).
Anti-shake
A feature of most modern cameras to avoid camera-shake blurs on images. It works as a live image cropper. You do not shoot the actual whole image the camera sees, but a portion of it. The rest of the image that you do not shoot is used by the camera to be cropped down live and have the actual image stay in one place.
There is also mechanical anti-shake that controls the lenses, which is far more effective than digital. There is also an option for hybrid (smart) image stabilizer (anti-shake) which is the best option.
Aperture value (A or Av)
The aperture value is given by a division number and the f (focal length). A large aperture is a small value: f/1.8 and a small aperture is a large value: f/16.
Bokeh
A japanese word, which means blur. People refer to the blurred light effects in the out-of-focus parts of an image.
CCD (Charge-Coupled Device)
A digital image (light) sensor that picks up light and colors. There are cameras that have 1 CCD, in these all of the image is recognized by a single sensor. There are cameras that have 3 CCDs, where the 3 sensors recognize different colors (Red Green and Blue) and creates the color image that way, giving a more colorful and a better-contrast image.
Compact
A camera type that does not have an interchangable lens or an optical viewfinder. Instead they use static focus or built-in zoom lens, and a liveview LCD screen or a glass see-through viewfinder.
Depth of Field (DOF)
The distance range in your scene that falls into the acceptable sharpness range. Smaller aperture settings give you wider, while larger apertures give you smaller DOF. Focus point also determines (contracts or extends) the DOF.
Digital
Digital is a term that the computerized world uses often. It means that incoming analogue (or digital) data is only accepted if the values fall between a certain range. This is barely noticable (if the analogue signal is quite clear), but it is there in e.g.: television-broadcasts, radios, sound outputs. If a bit of signal (e.g.: noise) is too low, it is dropped and the "line" of data is silenced at that point. In photography, this means that images that got their parts burned out (over-whitened by light) cannot be restored. (Same for dark parks.) If the white value is white, it will stay white. Of course there is touch-up and repainting, but that is not as good as an analogue negative image, where you'd have the possibility to reduce light and dim the image.
Digital Zoom
A live image-enlargement feature, often put into digital cameras and camcorders to close-in on distant objects. (Especially when there is no or little optical zoom availalbe.) It generates a quite ugly "pixelated" (squared) effect and should not be used in professional environments in any ways.
Distortion
The parts of the image that are curved because of the curvy nature of lenses. Telephoto lenses have least and landscape lenses have most of it. (Long and short lenses.)
Exposure
The image creation technology that makes a light-sensitive film capture the scene that is focused on it by a series of lenses. This also includes the aperture setup jumping into place and the shutter curtains giving way to light.
Exposure Value (EV)
The amount of light needed for the picture to be well shot (exposed). The full definition can be found in the Exposure section.
Field of View (FOV or Angle of View)
An angle of the scene your camera can capture with the given focal length. The longer the f the smaller the FOV.
Film
A light sensitive plastic roll that is wound by a mechanism (or the photographer in older cameras). The film captures the image which later will need to be developed to get the picture shown on the film and later on paper.
Filters
A filter is a (mostly) glass-made, round metal framed object that mounts onto your camera lens. Filters are designed to modify the image you capture, before you capture it. With this opportunity, you can create interesting effects and make different versions of pictures.
Fix F
These lenses cannot change their focal length and therefore cannot zoom. Fix F lenses are a bit more stable than zoom lenses but not in all cases. Fix F only excludes some movement of lenses.
Flash
Flash is the most basic of lighting equipments. It is usually built in to modern cameras, but there are also external ones and ones that are standing far away from the camera on stands. Flashes fire when the 1st curtain of the SLR camera completely opens. On compacts it is timed digitally.
Flash blackout
An effect that occurs when the shutter speed is faster than the flash sync speed.
Flash sync
Flash sync speed is fastest shutter speed when the 2nd shutter curtain does not begin to pull up before the 1st curtain is completely open. This on most machines is around 1/250th sec.
Focal length (F)
Focal length is the distance between the outmost lens and the media (film or sensor) that receives the light.
Focus
Focus is the point of distance where your camera lens is calibrated to make sharpest picture. Your DOF is also determined by your focus point.
f-Stop (f/n where n is a number)
f-Stop is the aperture value expressed in divisions of the lens'es focal length. E.g.: the focal length is 50mm and the aperture is f/5.6, the resulting aperture size will become:8,92mm.
Full-Stop
One Full Stop is an exposure value determiner. Each scene you photograph has an appropriate EV. If you choose a camera setting that gives 1 less stop, it will be under-exposed. If you choose one that is 1 more stop, it will be over-exposed. Full stops can be given or taken by changing: Aperture, Shutter speed or ISO.
Hybrid
A type of camera that does not have a mirror, but has an aperture in the lens. Creates better pictures than compact cameras but does not reach the quality or reliability of an SLR.
ISO
ISO (International Standards Organization) is the value of sensitivity. A lower ISO setting or value of a film need more light to be affective, while a high ISO needs less light. High ISO number are better for darker shots, and lower ISO numbers are better for daylight.
Key light
The light source that lights the subject and is stronger or of equal power with the ambient light.
LCD
Liquid Crystal Display. A flat display type often used in Digital cameras as well to provide a live view of the picture that is to be captured and to provide a screen for digital menu systems.
Lenses
The optical series of lens that provide focus and other optical means to take pictures. They can be telephoto, medium lens, or wide angle, or even macro lens. Fix focal length or zoom lens.
Light meter (LM)
A device that gives an example usable EV setup to be used in your camera.
MegaPixels (MP)
Million Pixels (pixels are the smallest parts of a digital screen). The resolution of a digital camera is often given in this value. E.g.: if a camera can take pictures of 1600x1200 pixel resolution, that is a roughly 1,9MP camera ~2MP.
Memory Card
A small and portable data storage device often used in digital cameras. Memory cards don't loose their contents once the device is turned off or batteries removed, or the card is taken out of the camera.
Mirror (SLR)
In SLR cameras a mirror is responsible for creating the image in the viewfinder. The mirror flips away once the exposure button is pressed, to give way for light to reach the media.
Pentaprism
A five-sided prism that transfers the image coming from the lens and through the mirror and making it reach the viewfinder.
Red-Eye
Red-eye effect is caused by the flash being too close to the camera lens. This effect happens often on compacts, not so much on SLRs where flash sits quite a few cms above the lenses.
Reflection Angle
Reflection angle is the angle in which light continues its path from a reflective surface. This is most often found in red-eye problems, where the reflection angle is too small. Make it larger, the red-eye disappears.
Shutter curtain
A set of 2 curtains that hide the light from reaching the media or sensor before exposure. The first curtain reaching top fires the flash. The 2nd curtain goes off when the bottom of the media has been exposed long enough according to shutter speed. If needed, the 2nd curtain will go off before the 1st finishes its way up, thus creating the shorter shutter speeds and also the flash-blackout effect.
Shutter speed (S or Tv)
The fraction of time for which the shutter curtains expose the media to light.
SLR (Single Lens Reflex)
SLR cameras come with a mirror, a pentaprism, an optical viewfinder and interchangable lenses. These properties describe the camera best. SLRs expose the media by setting the aperture to the desired setting, flipping the mirror up from the way, then exposing with the help of the 2-piece shutter curtain set.
Tog
Slang, refers to "phoTOGrapher".
Touchup
Touchup is also called post-production. It is a digital way of enhancing poor or not good enough quality pictures to preserve its contents. Analogue pictures can also be subject to touch-up, either by scanning it into computer, or by using analogue lab-techniques to re-develop the images.
TTL metering
TTL = Through The Lens, which means the camera metering system. The light meter within your camera meters the amount of light entering the lens (which is the light reflected from your subjects), not the strength of the light source(s)!
ViewFinder (VF)
The ViewFinder is the glassy "hole" in the camera which you look into to find what view of a scene you'd like to capture. For compacts and hybrids this is mostly an LCD screen or a see-through glass window. For SLRs the lenses, mirrors and the pentaprism give you a direct view of what is to be captured.
Zoom (or Vario)
The varied position of lenses, giving a smaller or larger focal length. Variable focal length lenses (zoom lenses) can be used for many purpose, from normal photography (e.g.: streets) to telephoto (e.g.: portraits) due to their variable nature (e.g.: 60mm-150mm)
