Digital Camera Glossary
To help educate consumers, here are some basic digital camera terms defined:
Aperture: The lens opening formed by an adjustable iris diaphragm that determines how much light passes through the lens to the image sensor.
Depth of Field: The range within which objects will be in sharp focus beyond the single point upon which a lens is focused. Large aperture openings yield greater depth of field, while smaller openings result in shallow depth of field.
DSLR Camera: Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. DSLR cameras use interchangeable lens systems and a through-the-lens viewfinder system that reflects light from the lens with a mirror into a prism.
Exposure: The amount of light that is recorded by the image sensor to create a photograph.
F-stop: A numerical designation indicating the of the lens aperture opening. F-stop numbers are inversely proportional to their ; a large number such as f/22 signifies a smaller opening whereas f/2 indicates a large opening.
ISO: An abbreviation for International Standards Organization, which refers to the specific light sensitivity of a camera using numerical designations. The higher the number, the more sensitive the camera is to light. A digital camera setting of ISO 800 is said to be "faster," or more sensitive to light, than a setting of ISO 100.
Megapixel: One megapixel is equal to one million pixels.
Pixel: A pixel is the smallest single component of a digital image. Pixels are pieced together like tiles in a mosaic to form a digital photograph.
Shutter: The mechanism inside a camera that opens and closes to expose the image sensor to light from the lens. Changing the shutter speed alters the time of the exposure.
White Balance: A digital camera's ability to adjust the color and tint of a photograph under different lighting conditions to match the color and tint of the actual scene that was photographed.
Aperture: The lens opening formed by an adjustable iris diaphragm that determines how much light passes through the lens to the image sensor.
Depth of Field: The range within which objects will be in sharp focus beyond the single point upon which a lens is focused. Large aperture openings yield greater depth of field, while smaller openings result in shallow depth of field.
DSLR Camera: Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. DSLR cameras use interchangeable lens systems and a through-the-lens viewfinder system that reflects light from the lens with a mirror into a prism.
Exposure: The amount of light that is recorded by the image sensor to create a photograph.
F-stop: A numerical designation indicating the of the lens aperture opening. F-stop numbers are inversely proportional to their ; a large number such as f/22 signifies a smaller opening whereas f/2 indicates a large opening.
ISO: An abbreviation for International Standards Organization, which refers to the specific light sensitivity of a camera using numerical designations. The higher the number, the more sensitive the camera is to light. A digital camera setting of ISO 800 is said to be "faster," or more sensitive to light, than a setting of ISO 100.
Megapixel: One megapixel is equal to one million pixels.
Pixel: A pixel is the smallest single component of a digital image. Pixels are pieced together like tiles in a mosaic to form a digital photograph.
Shutter: The mechanism inside a camera that opens and closes to expose the image sensor to light from the lens. Changing the shutter speed alters the time of the exposure.
White Balance: A digital camera's ability to adjust the color and tint of a photograph under different lighting conditions to match the color and tint of the actual scene that was photographed.