25 Common Photography Terms All Beginners Need to Know

Hot Shoe

Hot shoe is the slot at the top of a camera for adding accessories, like the aptly named hot shoe flash.

Noise

Noise is simply little flecks in an image, also sometimes called grain. Images taken at high ISOs have a lot of noise, so it's best to use the lowest ISO you can for the amount of light in the scene.

Long Exposure

A long exposure is an image that has been exposed for a long time or uses a long shutter speed. This technique is useful for shooting still objects in low light (used often by landscape photographers), or rendering moving objects into an artistic blur.

Single Lens Reflex

A single lens reflex camera has a single lens that forms an image which is reflected to the viewfinder. Digital single lens reflex cameras or DSLR cameras are the most versatile of the digital cameras.

Time Lapse

A time-lapse is a video created from stitching several photos together taken of the same thing at different times. Don't confuse a time lapse with a long exposure, which is a single image with a long shutter speed.

Bokeh

Bokeh is the orbs created when lights are out of focus in an image. It's a neat effect to have in the background of a photo, created through wide apertures. It will have an interesting effect on your image quality. Check out our ultimate guide to Creating Backgrounds With Bokeh for everything you could want to learn.

Depth of Field

Depth of field is a photography term that refers to how much of the image is in focus. The camera will focus on one distance, but there's a range of distance in front and behind that point that stays sharp—that's depth of field. Portraits often have a soft, unfocused background—this is a shallow depth of field. Landscapes, on the other hand, often have more of the image in focus—this is a large depth of field, with a big range of distance that stays sharp.

Digital Vs. Optical

Digital and optical are important terms to understand when shopping for a new camera. Digital means the effect is achieved through software, not physical parts of the camera. Optical is always better than digital. These terms are usually used when referring to a zoom lens (on a compact camera) as well as image stabilization.

Exposure Compensation

Exposure compensation is a way to tell the camera that you'd like the exposure to be lighter or darker. Exposure compensation can be used on some automated modes and semi-automated modes like aperture priority. It's measured in stops of light, with negative numbers resulting in a darker image and positive ones creating a brighter shot.

Exposure

Exposure is how light or dark an image is. An image is created when the camera sensor (or film strip) is exposed to light—that's where the term originates. A dark photo is considered underexposed, or it wasn't exposed to enough light; a light photo is overexposed or exposed to too much light. Exposure is controlled through aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Aspect Ratio

If you've ever printed images before, you've probably noticed that an 8 x 10 usually crops from the original image. That's due to aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is simply the ratio of the height to width. An 8 x 10 has an equal aspect ratio to a 4 x 5, but a 4 x 7 image is a bit wider. You can change the aspect ratio in your camera if you know how you'd like to print your image, or you can crop your photo when you edit it to the right ratio.

Manual

Manual mode allows the photographer to set the exposure instead of having the camera do it automatically. In manual, you choose the aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and those choices affect how light or dark the image is. Semi-manual modes include aperture priority (where you only choose the aperture), shutter priority (where you only choose the shutter speed) and programed auto (where you choose a combination of aperture and shutter speed together instead of setting them individually). Manual can also refer to manual focus, or focusing yourself instead of using the autofocus.

RAW or Raw Files

RAW is a file type that gives the photographer more control over photo editing. RAW is considered a digital negative, where the default JPEG file type has already been processed a bit. RAW requires special software to open, however, while JPEG is more universal. Typically, it's better to shoot in RAW because the image retains more quality making it better for editing.

Shutter Release

That's the button (or shutter button) you press to take the picture. It allows you to point-and-shoot.

Viewfinder

That's the hole you look through to take the picture. Some digital cameras don't have one and just use the screen, but all DSLRs and most mirrorless cameras use them.

ISO

The ISO determines how sensitive the camera is to light. For example, an ISO of 100 means the camera isn't very sensitive—great for shooting in the daylight. An ISO 3200 means the camera is very sensitive to light, so you can use that higher ISO for getting shots in low light. The trade off is that images at high ISOs appear to be grainy and have less detail. ISO is balanced with aperture and shutter speed to get a proper exposure.

File Format

The file format is how your camera lens will record the image or image file. Raw files contain more information than JPGs, which makes them more suitable for photo editing in various editing software.

Focal Length

The focal length describes the distance in millimeters between the lens and the image it forms on the film. It informs the angle of view (how much of what is being shot will be captured) and the magnification (how large things will appear). Essentially, the focal length is how 'zoomed in' your images will appear. For example, a Canon (or Nikon or Olympus) 35mm lens will create images that appear more 'zoomed in' than a Canon 18mm.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed is the part of the camera that opens and closes to let light in and take a picture. The shutter speed is how long that shutter stays open, written in seconds or fractions of a second, like 1/200 s. or 1", with the " symbol often used to designate an entire second. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light that is let in. But, anything that moves while the shutter is open will become a blur, and if the entire camera moves while the shutter is open the whole image will be blurry—that's why tripods are necessary for longer shutter speeds.

Aperture

This is the first common photography term you should learn. Simply put, aperture is the size of the opening in the lens. Think of the lens as a window—large windows or wide angles let in more light, while small windows let in less light. A wide open aperture will let more light into the image for a brighter photo, while a smaller aperture lets in less light. Aperture is measured in f-stops; a small f-stop like f/1.8 is a wide opening, a large f-stop like f/22 is a very narrow one. Aperture is one of three camera settings that determine an image's exposure, or how light or dark it is. Aperture also affects how much of the image is in focus—wide apertures result in that creamy, unfocused background while narrow apertures keep more of the image sharp.

Metering

Using manual mode isn't all guesswork—a light meter built into the camera helps guide those decisions, indicating if the camera thinks the image is over or under exposed. Metering is actually based on a middle gray, so having lighter or darker objects in the image can throw the metering off a little bit. Metering modes indicate how the meter is reading the light. Matrix metering means the camera is reading the light from the entire scene. Center-weighted metering considers only what's at the center of the frame and spot metering measures the light based on where your focus point is.

Focus

When your eyes focus on an object that's close to you, the objects far away will appear blurry. The common photography term "focus" has the same meaning. Something that is in focus is sharp, while an object that is out-of-focus isn't sharp. Different focus areas determine if the camera is focusing on multiple points or one user-selected point.

Burst Mode

You can take photos one at a time. Or, you can turn the burst mode on and the camera will continue snapping photos as long as you hold the button down, or until the buffer is full (which is a fancy way of saying the camera can't process anymore). Burst speeds differ based on what camera or film camera you own, some are faster than others. Just how fast is written in "fps" or frames (pictures) per second. This will give you a wide selection of which close-up you'll ultimately select of your dog!

Flash Sync

You probably know that the flash is a burst of light—flash sync determines when the flash fires. Normally, the flash fires at the beginning of the photo, but changing the flash sync mode adjusts when that happens. The rear curtain flash sync mode, for example, fires the flash at the end of the photo instead of the beginning.

White Balance

Your eyes automatically adjust to different light sources, but a camera can't do that—that's why sometimes you take an image and it looks very blue or very yellow. Using the right white balance setting will make what's white in real life actually appear white in the photo. There's an auto white balance setting, but like any automatic setting, it's not always accurate. You can use a preset based on what light you are shooting in like sun or tungsten light bulbs, or you can take a picture of a white object and manually set the white balance.