Photographic Terminology

Cesca Haig

Shutter Speed

o Shutter speed is the amount

of time the shutter stays

open allowing light to reach

the camera sensor. it is

measured in seconds, or fractions of seconds.

ISO

o ISO is the number

indicating a digital camera sensors sensitivity to

light. The higher the

sensitivity, the less light is

needed to make an

exposure.

Aperture

o The aperture controls the amount of

light that reaches a digital camera

sensor. An aperture acts much like

the pupil of an eye. It opens wider

as light decreases to let in more

available light. It gets smaller when

light increases to reduce the

amount of light entering the eye.

o The diameter of an aperture is

measured in f-stops. A lower f-stop

number opens the aperture and

admits more light onto the camera

sensor. Higher f-stop numbers make

the camera’s aperture smaller so

less light hits the sensor

Manual V Automatic Exposure

o Manual Exposure is when you

can select what level of

exposure you want your

pictures to have.

o When Automatic Exposure is

selected the camera will

automatically chose the level

of exposure.

Exposure is the amount of light that you allow to hit an object or

area in a photograph.

Colour Balance & White Balance

If your colour balance is correct

then everything in your image will

be seen on screen, as you see it.

If it is off the image will look

This shows the original which is

more blue and on the right a

better picture in which all the

colours have mixed making it

brighter and more balanced.

Composition

The arrangement of the main subject,

other objects in a scene, and/or the

foreground and background.

Rule of thirdso On this image you can see the

grid lines that has split the photo

into three sections each way. It

shows you how the main focus

of the image is off to the side,

on one of the points instead of

being in the centre. This is

basically what the rule of thirds

consists of.

Examples of Rule of thirds

Analogous colours

o Analogous colours are

colours that are adjacent

to each other on the colour

wheel. One is usually a

primary or secondary with

the others being tertiary.

Some examples of this are;

o red, red-orange, red-violet

o blue, blue-violet, blue-

green

o yellow, yellow-orange,

yellow-green

On this picture I too the colours

are all analogous.

Complementary Colours

o Complementary colours are

pairs of colours that opposite

on the colour wheel.

Examples are;

o Red – green

o Orange - Blue

o Yellow – Violet

In this picture the green and

purple are the complementary

colours. I took this picture myself.

Macro

O Macro is used in close up

photography, it enables the

user to take close up pictures

of smaller objects, allowing

you to see the finer details that

can’t be seen with the naked

eye.

O This is a picture that I took

myself, you can see all the fine

details of the flower.

Depth of FieldDepth of field (f stop) control the

distance from the camera that is in

focus.

If you have a shallow depth of field

the subject at the front of the

image is in focus and anything in

the background is out of focus. I took this