Photography as an art is filled with terms the less informed cannot understand. So when you buy a digital camera, it is common for you to be overwhelmed with the many things you need to know about it. As tiny and easy to use it may seem it sure does pack in quite a few features. But you don't need to worry, because these features once understood, can be quite easy to work with. Here we inform you about the most common terms you may hear or read, and what they mean.
Aperture: This is a small, circular opening in the camera lens, which controls how much light enters the camera, to the sensor. So, if you were to say that the aperture is large, that means that the lens is allowing more light to enter. The aperture is usually calibrated in f-numbers, which is inversely proportional to it, meaning if the f-number is large, the aperture is small and vice-versa.
Shutter-speed: This refers to how fast the shutter of the camera opens and closes, when a picture is taken. Say, for instance, the shutter speed is 1/250 or 250 in simpler terms; that means that the shutter was open for 1/250th of a second. Like the aperture, the shutter speed also deals with the amount of light that enters the camera.
ISO speed: In digital photography, this refers to the sensitivity of the camera's imaging sensor. It gives an idea of how fast the sensor responds to the light that it receives.
Exposure: As you may have guessed, this deals with the amount of light that is allowed to enter the camera to fall on the sensor.
Megapixel: A pixel is a building block for a digital photo. Just like an atom is to us, a pixel is the smallest element of a photograph, combining million times over to create a photograph. A megapixel is equal to one million of such pixels.
Image Resolution: This is a common term depicting the amount of pixels in a digital photograph.
Depth of Field: A lens can usually focus on only one object or area at a time. In this case, the focused part is sharp and clear, and the rest of the photograph may appear blurred, depending on the composition. The distance up to which the lens can focus clearly corresponds to the depth of field. It usually increases by decreasing the aperture.
Autofocus: This feature, prevalent in most cameras, allows it to automatically focus on objects in a photograph. The camera is given the decision of choosing the object it wants to have clearer than the rest in the composition.
Saturation: This term is used to describe how rich the colours are in a photograph.
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