AF area — The part of the frame in which the autofocus system looks for a subject. A small point gives precision; a larger area may make a moving subject easier to acquire.
AF C — Continuous autofocus, which updates focus as the subject or camera moves. Names and behaviour vary between manufacturers.
AF S — Single autofocus, which normally acquires focus and then holds it until focusing is triggered again.
Aperture — The opening in a lens through which light passes, expressed by an f-number. It affects light transmission and depth of field.
Aperture priority — An exposure mode in which you choose the aperture and the camera chooses a shutter speed, with ISO behaviour depending on the settings.
Aspect ratio — The relationship between image width and height. A square is 1:1; a common landscape format is 3:2.
Attribution — Identification of a work's creator and, where required, its source and licence. Attribution alone does not provide permission to reproduce a protected work.
Auto ISO — A setting that lets the camera vary ISO within configured conditions. Check its limits and its interaction with shutter speed and exposure compensation.
Back-button focus — Assigning focus activation to a separate control rather than relying solely on a half-press of the shutter button.
Backlight — Light arriving from behind the subject relative to the camera. It can produce an outline, transmitted light or a silhouette, depending on the scene and exposure.
Banding — Visible bands caused by factors such as lighting flicker, electronic readout or processing limitations. The appearance and remedy depend on the cause.
Blue hour — A period of twilight when the sky can appear blue and natural and artificial light may balance usefully. Its duration varies.
Bokeh — The visual character of out-of-focus rendering. Bright defocused points can appear as discs or other shapes, but bokeh is not simply the amount of blur.
Bracketing — Recording several frames with a chosen setting varied between them, often exposure. A later HDR merge is a separate operation.
Burst — A sequence made through continuous shooting. It can help compare fleeting gestures but does not choose a viewpoint or composition.
Candid — Unposed rather than directed. A subject may notice the camera without the picture becoming a posed portrait.
Capture sharpening — Sharpening applied as part of interpreting or developing the source file, before output-specific adjustments.
CCD — Charge-coupled device, a sensor technology used in some digital cameras and scanners. The technology name alone does not establish image quality.
Centre-weighted metering — Metering that gives greater influence to the central area while considering a wider portion of the frame.
Chiaroscuro — The use of light and dark to describe form and create visual emphasis, often through strong tonal relationships.
Clipping — Loss of represented detail beyond an image's available tonal limits. Highlight or shadow clipping may be deliberate in small areas, but important lost detail cannot always be recovered.
CMOS — Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, a family of sensor technologies widely used in digital cameras. Performance depends on the particular design.
Colour grading — Deliberate adjustment of colour relationships to shape the rendering or mood. It should be distinguished from correcting an unwanted colour cast.
Composition — The relationships among the elements included in a frame, influenced by position, timing, framing and presentation.
Compression — Either reducing file data, sometimes losslessly, or the photographic impression of reduced near-far separation associated with a distant viewpoint. The context determines the meaning.
Contact sheet — A display of small versions of several photographs, useful for comparing sequences, variations and selections.
Contrast — Difference between tones or colours. Global and local contrast affect an image differently.
Copyright — Legal rights in an eligible creative work. Ownership, duration and exceptions depend on applicable law and circumstances.
Crop — A selection of part of the recorded image. It changes framing and can also change the apparent context.
Depth of field — The range of distances judged acceptably sharp for a particular output and viewing condition. It has no perfectly abrupt physical boundary.
Diffraction — The spreading of light associated with an aperture, which can reduce fine-detail contrast at very small openings.
Dodge and burn — Local lightening and darkening. Subtle use can guide attention while retaining believable transitions.
DSLR — A digital single-lens reflex camera, using a mirror system to provide an optical through-the-lens viewfinder.
Dutch angle — An intentionally tilted camera orientation. It can add tension or energy, though an accidental tilt may simply distract.
Dynamic range — The span between the darkest and brightest information a capture or output can represent usefully under stated conditions.
Electronic shutter — Electronic control of exposure rather than, or in combination with, a mechanical shutter. Readout behaviour varies, and some systems can distort movement or show lighting bands.
Environmental portrait — A portrait whose surroundings contribute meaningful information about the person or activity. It may be cooperative or observational.
EVF — Electronic viewfinder, showing a sensor-derived view. Its brightness and processing do not guarantee what the final file will look like.
Exposure — Light received during capture, determined by illumination, lens transmission and aperture, and exposure time. Rendered brightness also depends on ISO and processing.
Exposure compensation — A control that biases the camera's metered exposure proposal in a supported automatic mode. Its operation with manual mode and Auto ISO is camera-dependent.
Fill flash — Flash used to supplement existing illumination, often to lighten a shadowed subject. Its effect depends on distance, power and the ambient exposure.
Focal length — An optical property of the lens, expressed in millimetres. Together with sensor or film size it determines angle of view; it is not simply the physical length of the lens.
Focal plane — In an image-forming system, a plane at which light is brought to focus. The sensor or film must receive an appropriately focused image; the corresponding subject plane lies in the scene.
Focal-plane shutter — A shutter near the sensor or film. Exposure time depends on how its curtains or slits expose each part of the image area.
Framing — Choosing what enters the picture and how the edges meet it. A frame within the frame uses a visible structure such as a window or doorway.
Full-frame equivalent — A way of comparing angle of view across sensor sizes using a 36 × 24 mm reference. It does not make every other image property identical.
Golden hour — A descriptive period around low sunlight near sunrise or sunset. Warm colour and long shadows are common, but the light is not necessarily soft and the period is not always an hour.
Golden ratio — A mathematical proportion sometimes used as a composition guide. Its presence is not a guarantee of photographic quality.
Grain — Visible structure associated with photographic film and its reproduction. Digital noise and added grain effects are different phenomena, even when they look similar.
Greyscale — A rendering made from neutral brightness values rather than visible colour differences.
Halo — A bright or dark fringe, often visible around an edge after excessive sharpening, masking or tonal processing.
HDR — High dynamic range. In a photographic workflow it often involves merging different exposures; movement between them can produce artefacts or combine different moments.
High key — An image dominated by light tones. It need not have weak local contrast or be incorrectly exposed.
Histogram — A distribution of represented pixel brightness or colour values. In-camera displays commonly relate to a processed preview rather than raw sensor data directly.
Hyperfocal distance — A calculated focus distance that places the far limit of acceptable depth of field at infinity under chosen assumptions. Verify that its standard of sharpness suits your output.
ISO — A camera setting affecting signal handling and rendered brightness. Raising it does not increase the number of photons gathered by a digital sensor at a fixed aperture and exposure time.
JPEG — A rendered image format commonly using lossy compression. It is convenient for viewing but less flexible than raw for extensive tonal or colour changes.
Juxtaposition — A relationship created by placing or observing elements together, often through resemblance, difference or contradiction.
Leading lines — Lines that guide attention through a picture. They are useful when their direction contributes to the photograph's purpose.
Leading look — A gaze that encourages the viewer to look towards another area. The destination may be visible or implied beyond the frame.
Licence — Permission to use a work under stated terms. A licence is distinct from a transfer of copyright and from a model release.
Long exposure — An exposure long enough for movement or accumulated light to become an important part of the result.
Low key — An image dominated by dark tones. It may contain subtle shadow transitions rather than only deep black and bright highlights.
Medium format — Film or digital formats larger than the 35 mm full-frame reference, covering several actual sizes. Image quality still depends on the equipment and use.
Metadata — Information associated with a file, including capture details, descriptions and rights information. Some metadata can be removed during sharing.
Micro Four Thirds — A camera system using a sensor approximately 17.3 × 13 mm, with lenses designed for its mount and format.
Mirrorless camera — A camera without a reflex mirror in its viewing path, generally using a sensor-derived display or viewfinder. Size and performance vary by model and lens.
Model release — An agreement concerning specified uses of a person's likeness. Its scope, validity and necessity depend on the circumstances and law.
Monochrome — A rendering based on one colour family, including neutral black and white or a single-toned treatment such as sepia.
Motion blur — Recorded movement of the subject, camera or both during exposure. It can be intentional or unwanted.
Motion freeze — Rendering movement sufficiently sharply for the intended purpose, usually through a short effective exposure time.
Noise — Random variation affecting an image, including photon shot noise and electronic contributions. Less light and strong amplification or shadow lifting can make it more visible.
Non-destructive editing — Keeping the source unchanged while storing adjustments or working through separate versions.
Output sharpening — Sharpening tailored to the final dimensions, viewing method and medium after resizing.
Panning — Moving the camera to follow a subject during exposure. A successful result can retain useful subject detail while the surroundings blur.
Perspective — The relative sizes, positions and overlaps of objects as seen from a viewpoint. Moving the camera changes perspective.
Pixelation — Visible block-like structure associated with insufficient resolution or particular processing and display conditions.
Point and shoot — A camera designed for straightforward operation, usually with an integrated lens and automatic options. The term does not determine sensor size or the absence of manual controls.
Point of view — The photographer's physical viewing position, and sometimes their interpretive approach. Be clear which meaning is intended.
Pre-focus — Setting focus before the intended event, often on a place where a subject is expected to arrive.
Prime lens — A lens with one focal length. Its size, aperture and optical performance depend on the particular design.
Raw — A family of camera formats retaining sensor data and metadata for interpretation by a converter. Raw files can be compressed or uncompressed.
Rolling shutter — A readout characteristic in which different parts of the image are recorded at different times, potentially distorting movement.
Rule of thirds — A composition guide dividing the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically. It is one way to compare placements, not a requirement.
Saturation — The intensity or purity of colour in a rendering. It has no visible colour effect in a finished neutral greyscale image.
Sensor — The light-sensitive component that converts incoming light into signals for digital capture. Its performance is one part of the whole imaging system.
Shallow depth of field — A comparatively narrow range of acceptable sharpness around the chosen focus distance.
Shutter priority — An exposure mode in which you choose the shutter speed and the camera chooses an aperture, subject to its available limits and ISO settings.
Shutter speed — The exposure duration for a point in the image. It affects recorded movement and the amount of light collected.
Silhouette — A subject represented chiefly by a dark shape against a brighter area. Clear outlines and separation are important.
Softness — Reduced detail or edge contrast that can arise from focus, movement, optics, processing or an intentional aesthetic choice.
Spot metering — Measuring reflected light from a small selected area. Interpretation of the measured tone remains necessary.
Stop — A doubling or halving of a relevant exposure quantity. Familiar f-number steps correspond approximately to halving or doubling aperture area.
Telephoto — In everyday photographic use, a lens giving a narrow angle of view and enlarged distant detail. The compressed perspective often associated with it comes from the farther viewing position.
Tilt and shift — Optical movements with different functions. Tilt changes the orientation of the focus plane; shift moves framing relative to the image area.
Tonality — The distribution, relationships and transitions of tones within an image.
Urban landscape — A view concerned with the built environment and the character or use of public space, with or without visible people.
Vibrance — A software colour-intensity control that generally treats colours selectively rather than adjusting all saturation equally. Behaviour varies by application.
Vignette — A change in brightness towards the image edges, arising optically or through processing. Darkening is common, though a vignette can also lighten edges.
Watermark — A visible or embedded identifying mark. It can help communicate authorship but does not prevent all copying or create copyright by itself.
White balance — Adjustment of colour rendering to account for illumination or a chosen appearance. It can influence a monochrome conversion from colour data but does not replace exposure control.
Wide-angle lens — A lens giving a broad angle of view for the sensor or film format. The perspective associated with close wide-angle photographs comes from the close viewpoint.
Zone focus — Pre-selecting a distance and aperture to obtain a useful zone of acceptable sharpness. The result depends on actual distances, output and the standard of sharpness used.
Zoom lens — A lens with adjustable focal length. Zooming from the same position changes framing; moving the camera changes perspective.