Photography Vocabulary from A-Z P. 2

Aperture is . . .

• The amount of light reaching light sensitive material such as film, printing paper of a CCD. Exposure is controlled by the shutter speed (time) and aperture (intensity)

• A round hole in the front of the camera lens which controls the amount of light allowed to pass on to the film

• Standard method of image data compression used to reduce the file size of digital images.

Background is . . .

• The camera uses this card to store pictures

• Random coloured pixels that appear in dark or shadow areas when the light levels are below the camera's sensitivity range. Noise is also often seen from scans made using a scanner that doesn't have a wide enough dynamic range.

• Area behind the subject of matter in a picture

Contrast is. . .

• The small window in the camera that you look through when taking a picture

• A picture presenting a continuous view of the landscape, produced either by using a panoramic camera or from a composite of several images

• The range of brightness, from lightest to darkest, in an image. A high-contrast image will have very bright highlights and very dark shadows.

Distortion is . . .

• When the straight lines of an image appear to be deformed or curved unnaturally.

• The amount of light that reaches your camera's sensor, creating visual data over a period of time

• The Viewfinder is the eyepiece on a camera that you hold close to your eye, to allow you to see what's being photographed. There are two types of viewfinders – optical, and digital.

Exposure is . . .

• A flash is a device used in photography that produces a brief burst of light (typically lasting 1/1000 to 1/200 of a second) at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene

• In digital photography, resolution is the level of detail contained in an image. More specifically, it refers to the number of pixels that exist within that image. The higher the resolution, and the richer the pixel count, the more detail and definition you will see

• The amount of light that reaches your camera's sensor, creating visual data over a period of time

Flash is . . .

• Key light is the primary light source for your scene. The strength, color, and angle of your key light is a determining factor to a cinematographer's lighting design. The key light is most often placed in front of your subject, at an angle, and thus illuminates one section of your subject.

• A flash is a device used in photography that produces a brief burst of light (typically lasting 1/1000 to 1/200 of a second) at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene

• Memory cards are literally just miniature digital data storage devices. These cards house non-volatile flash storage within them, which simply means that they can retain stored information or data even after they're unplugged - i.e., removed from a camera

Flash is . . .

• The spectrum of yellow, orange, and red tones in an image.

• The line of events within the computer or peripheral

• A flash is a device used in photography that produces a brief burst of light (typically lasting 1/1000 to 1/200 of a second) at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene

Gradation is . . .

• Changes or transitions in a characteristic or quality of a part of an image e.g. its lightness, texture, density either within an area of the image or between one area and another.

• The pure color, or the visible spectrum of basic colors that can be seen in a rainbow.

• An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye – about 160° by 75° – may be termed panoramic. This generally means it has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high. The resulting images take the form of a wide strip.

Hue is . . .

• A Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) file is a lossy raster file format that compresses an image to make the file smaller. JPEG files are some of the most popular and widely used image formats in the world.

• The pure color, or the visible spectrum of basic colors that can be seen in a rainbow

• A lens is a tool used to bring light to a fixed focal point. In a film camera, the lens sends the light to the film strip, while in a digital camera (like DSLRs or mirrorless cameras), the lens directs light to a digital sensor

Invert is . . .

• To change an image into its negative; black becomes white, white becomes black, dark gray becomes light gray, and so forth. Colours are also changed to the complementary color; green becomes magenta, blue turns to yellow, and red is changed to cyan.

• Resolution is the level of detail contained in an image. More specifically, it refers to the number of pixels that exist within that image. The higher the resolution, and the richer the pixel count, the more detail and definition you will see.

• Saturation describes the intensity of the color. And lightness refers to how light or dark the color is. A grayscale or black-and-white photo has no color saturation, while a full-color photo of a field of sunlit wildflowers might be extremely saturated