Photography Terms and Definitions
Terms | Definitions | |
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Auto Exposure Bracketing | A simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly | |
expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations. When | ||
(AEB) | AEB is selected, the camera automatically takes three or more shots with a | |
| different exposure for each frame. | |
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| Auto focus refers to a camera lens’ ability to adjust its configuration in order | |
Auto Focus (AF) | to focus properly on a subject regardless of whether it is near or far from the | |
camera. Auto focus lenses generally provide vastly superior image quality than | ||
| do their fixed focus cousins since they do not have to rely on their depth of | |
| field. Also known as: “AF”, | |
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Album | An | |
according to some | ||
| physical folder in a file system. | |
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Analog to Digital Converter | A circuit that converts an analog signal, having a continuously varying | |
(A/D or ADC) | amplitude, to a digitally quantized representation using binary output signals. | |
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Aspect Ratio | The aspect ratio of a camera is the ratio of the length of the length and width | |
of the display or images. | ||
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Auto White Balance (AWB) | With auto white balance, the camera attempts to determine the color | |
temperature of the light and automatically adjust for that color temperature. | ||
| Many people just leave the camera set to auto white balance all the time. | |
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Charge Coupled Device (CCD) | A type of silicon integrated circuit used to convert light into an electronic | |
signal. | ||
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Compression | The process of encoding information using fewer bits cf. image compression, | |
sound file compression. | ||
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Digital Print Order Format | A standardized ASCII file created in a digital camera and stored on removable | |
media along with the image files that indicate how many copies of which | ||
(DPOF) | images should be printed. It also allows index prints, cropping, and text | |
| overlays to be specified. | |
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Digital Still Camera (DSC) | A camera incorporating an image sensor which outputs a digital signal | |
representing a still picture, or records a digital signal representing a still | ||
| picture on a removable medium, such as a memory card or magnetic disk. | |
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Dynamic Range | Dynamic range in photography describes the ratio between the maximum and | |
minimum measurable light intensities (white and black, respectively). | ||
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| A compressed file format for digital cameras in which the images are | |
Exif/JPEG | compressed using the baseline JPEG standard, described in ISO | |
and metadata and thumbnail images are stored using TIFF tags within an | ||
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| application segment at the beginning of the JPEG file. | |
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| A numerical value that is inversely proportional to the exposure provided to | |
Exposure Index | an image sensor to obtain an image. Images obtained from a camera using a | |
range of exposure index values will normally provide a range of image quality | ||
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| levels. | |
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| A numerical value calculated from the exposure provided at the focal plane of | |
ISO Speed | an electronic camera to produce specified camera output signal characteristics | |
using the methods described in the referenced standard. The ISO speed | ||
| should correlate with the highest exposure index value that provides peak | |
| image quality for normal scenes. | |
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JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group. An image compression method defined in | |
ISO/IEC | ||
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Protocol | Defined mechanisms for exchanging data between devices. | |
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