A interactive 3D environment you can view on a screen and move around or look in different directions. There are 3D design and rendering tools, which create artificial environments, and 360 cameras which can capture a ‘spherical’ view of the world where you can move your view to look at different parts of the scene. 360 photos are not quite the same as rendered environments because they do not capture 3-dimensional objects but a 2-dimensional image from a specific viewpoint.
Definition
Low light photography
This is a general term for any kind of photography where there is very little light, such as at night, indoors, or at dusk or dawn. Traditionally this has always been very challenging for photographers because the low light levels require longer exposures, which bring the risk of subject movement or camera shake, or higher ISO settings, which produce more digital noise and a progressive loss of detail and image quality. Nevertheless, low light photography can produce some of the most dramatic and interesting images.
Manual lens
Often used as a description for lens which is manual focus only and does not have autofocus motors. Manual lenses often have a classical retro design with physical controls and metal construction. They are prime lenses rather than zooms and will often have a more detailed focus distance scale and depth of field markings which help with zone focusing in street photography and hyperfocal focusing in landscape photography.
Street photography
A genre of photography often associated with the golden age of photojournalism, and typically show people going about their daily lives, amusing juxtapositions or some kind of social commentary. It’s often in black and white and in a gritty documentary style.
Zone focusing
This is where you aim for a zone of sharpness in front of the camera, choosing a focus point and a lens aperture that will create the depth of field you need for subjects close to the camera and further away to be sharp at the same time.
10-bit video
A higher quality video capture setting than the regular 8-bit video capture of most consumer devices. The advantage of 10-bit video is that it will stand up better to any heavy video editing later on in post production. 10-bit video is especially important if you record using ‘log profiles’ to capture a wider color and brightness range.
10-bit HEIF
The HEIF format is relatively new and offers a potentially useful intermediate file format between 8-bit JPEGs and RAW files. The HEIF format is just as efficient as JPEG or better at minimizing file sizes without quality loss, and offers the option of 10-bit capture for increased resilience during editing.
4:2:0/4:2:2
These numbers refer to the level of compression of color data when capturing video. 4:2:0 is the highest level of compression producing the smallest and most manageable files and probably perfectly adequate quality when used as-is. 4:2:2 video is captured with less color data compression and may deliver better results, especially if you do any editing later.
1.5 inch sensor
A unique sensor size used by Canon in its PowerShot G1 X II compact camera. It’s just a little smaller than the APS-C format used by most DSLRs and larger than the 1 inch sensors used in other high-end PowerShot models, so it gets close to the quality of a good interchangeable lens camera.
Z mount (Nikon)
New lens mount used on Nikon mirrorless cameras with a shorter lens flange distance and wider lens throat for a new generation of mirrorless lenses. The mount is the same on both Nikon’s full frame FX format mirrorless models and its DX (APS-C) format models, though some Nikon Z DX lenses are designed specifically for the smaller sensor.
Write speed
The speed at data can be written to, or stored, on a memory card or other storage device. ‘Fast’ memory cards are useful for continuous shooting in sports photography, but the main requirement for memory card speed is in video, where memory cards need to be able to maintain a consistently high write speed. This is why most memory cards now come with a ‘class’ rating for video.
Working space (color)
A wide color space used in photo and video editing to encompass all the colors users want to work with. This could be a wide color space like Adobe RGB which is actually used by some real-world devices, or a wider ‘theoretical’ color space which is solely for editing but can encompass any other color space you might want to embed in your exported files.
Workflow
The steps taken by photographers at various stages of the image capture, editing and sharing process. For many photographers, getting the right ‘workflow’ means choosing the best image browsing and cataloging approach and working out how to integrate their photo editing software with their filing system – it often boils down to figuring out how to make two programs work efficiently together.
Voigtländer
A once famous German camera brand now taken over and operated by Japanese maker Cosina. Modern Voigtländer lenses come in a variety of lens mounts and are part of a new wave of interest in prime lenses, manual focus lenses and traditional styles of picture taking.
Vlogging
Shortened version of ‘video blogging’ associated with solo shooters and content creators filming not just the things they’re interested in, but themselves too as part of this. Vlogging typically requires its own approach to cameras, accessories and shooting techniques.
Virtual reality (VR)
An ‘immersive’ environment you can explore using a VR headset or via an interactive screen display. These are commonly created using computer generated 3D environments, but increasingly photographers are using 360 cameras to capture a spherical rendition of the world with the camera at the center. Viewers can explore 360-degree still images or watch 360 video while choosing where to look in the full 360-degree spherical scene.
Viltrox
An independent lens maker supplying affordable, wide aperture lenses for different mirrorless camera systems. It’s part of a surge in Chinese lens manufacture which is offering quality optics and prices below those of own-brand lenses from camera manufacturers.
Vector
Vari angle screen
Pivoting rear screen on a camera which can be flipped out sideways and angled up and down to allow shots to be framed with the camera at high or low viewpoints or from angles where it would be difficult to see the screen or viewfinder normally. Useful for video in particular but also stills photography.
USM
Stands for UltraSonic Motor, a type of autofocus actuator used by Canon and others to provide fast and quiet autofocus. Canon has a more compact variant called Nano USM. Other autofocus actuator types exist, such as STM (stepping motors) and linear motors.
USB charging/power delivery (PD)
A useful feature on most modern cameras where you can charge the battery while it’s still in the camera by connecting its USB port to a USB power supply or a portable power bank.
Type
The ‘designer’ word for text.
Tripod collar/foot
A tripod mounting bracket for larger, heavier lenses so that the weight is taken by the lens at its center of gravity rather than by the camera body. The tripod mount is on a metal collar which can be rotated around the lens for horizontal or vertical shooting and can sometimes be detached completely for handheld shooting.
Time and date setting
All digital cameras record the time and date and embed it in the photo’s EXIF data. It’s important to set the time and date correctly on the camera because it’s used later on when you want to search for photos on your computer or sort them in chronological order in cataloguing software.
Texture
Overlays used by some image effects software to simulate dust and scratches on a negative, paper textures or other ‘distressed’ surfaces. Also a slider in Lightroom to emphasise detail.
Synchronisation
If you use cloud storage then your devices will need manual or automatic synchronization to make sure your files are available everywhere, and if you make changes to your photos or folders outside of an image cataloging program like Lightroom, then you will need to synchronize those folders to update them in the catalog. Synchronization can also refer to flash synchronization (with the camera or other flash units).
Super wide angle
A lens with a much wider angle of view than your camera’s kit lens. In 35mm camera terms, a super-wide angle lens is one with a focal length of around 20mm or less. Super-wide angle lenses are quite expensive and characterized by large, bulbous front lens elements.
sRGB
A standard color space used widely by displays on smartphones, computers, tablets and other electronic devices. It reproduces a sufficiently wide range of colors to give realistic photographic images and is supported by almost all devices. As color spaces go, it’s a safe and effective ‘lowest common denominator’.
Spot (on sensor)
The sensors in interchangeable lens cameras are prone to picking up specks of dust which appear as small black spots in your images. Sensors have anti-static coatings and sensor cleaning mechanisms designed to repel and shake off dust particles but they often persist despite this. They can be removed with manual sensor cleaning or by using dust removal tools in software.
Spherical aberration
A property of simple lenses with spherical profiles where light rays at the edges of the lens are not focused at the same point as those passing through the center. It’s counteracted using combined concave and convex lenses (groups), aspherical lens elements and other optical designs.
Spectral sensitivity
The sensitivity of film or camera sensors to different wavelengths, or colors, of light. It’s especially relevant in black and white photography because it affects the way different colors are translated into shades of gray.
Snapseed (Google)
A simple image editor and effects tool originally published by Nik Software, but then by Google when it took that company over. Google has since discontinued the desktop version of Snapseed, but it still exists as a free app for Android and iOS smart devices.
Slider
A rail or a pair of rails to allow smooth horizontal camera movement while filming. Sliders can be free standing or tripod mounted. They may be hand operated or driven by motors.
Skylum
The new name for the company previously known as MacPhun. Skylum publishes the Luminar photo-editing program and Aurora HDR application.
Shadow noise
Digital image noise is often worse in darker areas of a photo and while this usually goes unnoticed because detail in these areas is dark and harder to see anyway, if you edit the image to bring out the shadows, this shadow noise can often become more prominent.
Rolling shutter
An image effect common with electronic shutters, as used for both video and stills photography, so that although they offer even higher shutter speeds than mechanical shutters, they too capture image data in ‘strips’, and while they may offer an exposure time of, say, 1/32,000sec, it actually takes considerably longer for this electronic scanning process to complete. This can only be fixed by so-called global shutters, which capture data from the entire sensor area at once.
RF mount (Canon)
The lens mount used by Canon’s latest generation of mirrorless cameras. These consist of both full frame and APS-C models, but the lens mount is the same for both, though there are some lenses made specifically for the smaller sensor size.
Release Priority mode
A focus mode for continuous shooting where the camera will release the shutter whether or not it has achieved focus on the subject. This can give faster and more consistent continuous shooting frame rates and does not necessarily produce more focus errors.
Red eye
An effect sometimes created by on-camera flash where the subject’s eyes take on an unnatural red color. It’s caused by the flash illuminating blood vessels on the retina from the same position as the camera lens. Fewer people use on-camera flash these days, most cameras have red eye reduction modes and you can eliminate it in many photo editors too.
Read speed
The maximum speed at which data can be copied off a memory card, typically onto a computer. This is useful in order to speed up the transfer of photos and videos, but not as important when shooting and filming as the memory card’s write speed. Read and write speeds are typically quoted in MB/s (megabytes per second), though some companies use Mb/s (megabits per second) – there are 8 bits in a byte, so this makes the numbers bigger.
RAW processing in camera
Some cameras now let you process RAW images and save them as new JPEG files on the memory card. That might sound a bit pointless when you could shoot JPEGs in the first place, but it does mean you can try out different white balance settings, picture styles and more starting from the saved RAW file.
Radiance
An adjustment in some HDR programs that has a somewhat vague and undefined effect, in a technical sense. In Aurora HDR, for example, it adds a kind of soft ‘glow’ which goes well with the supersaturated, other-wordly feel of most HDR images.
Quality setting
As well as saving JPEG photos at different sizes, cameras also offer different quality settings like ‘Fine’, ‘Normal’ and ‘Basic’. Fine produces the best picture quality and is the one to go for if you can. If your camera shoots RAW files, this is where you’ll find the RAW option. When saving images as JPEGs during editing, you’ll get a Quality option here too.
Pull focus
Manually changing the focus while filming to keep the subject in focus as they move, or as the camera moves. It involves a degree of skill and often a separate operator for high-end cinema productions. Essentially the same thing as ‘follow focus’ though ‘pull focus’ is typically what you do, while ‘follow focus’ is often a device to make this easier.
Prosumer
A made-up word to describe somebody mid-way between an amateur photographer (consumer) and professional (prosumer). A ‘prosumer’ has typically gone beyond snapshot photography, has become interested in photography as a hobby or ultimately a profession, and has a certain amount of technical knowledge.
ProRes
A video format developed by Apple and now used widely in the video industry. ProRes comes in two versions – a high-quality compressed version often provided as an internal recording option in more advanced video cameras, and ProRes RAW, a raw video format widely used by external recorders.
ProPhoto RGB
A ‘working’ color space used by Adobe to define colors within an editing environment. It’s not used as a color profile to embed and match to specific devices, but within programs like Adobe Lightroom as a ‘working space’.
Projection (panoramas, VR)
In some branches of photography, notably panoramas and 360 video or VR applications, you’re capturing a circular or spherical scene around the camera. The ‘projection’ is how this is ‘flattened out’ for printing and display. Cartographers mapping the globe have long faced ‘projection’ issues – how to represent a curved space on a flat plane.
PRIME (DxO)
A special noise reduction tool in DxO PhotoLab and PureRAW which uses extremely sophisticated noise reduction analysis and processing to achieve much better results than normal noise reduction. It’s very processor-intensive, though, so you can only preview the effect on small areas of the image at a time, and processing the full image can take a couple of minutes.
Pre burst/capture
A mode where the camera starts recording frames as soon as you half-press the shutter release and keeps recording frames in a kind of ‘rolling buffer’ all the time it stays pressed. When you press the shutter release the rest of the way, the camera incorporates these buffered shots into the burst sequence. You get to record action that has started even before you’ve had time to fully react.
POV
Immersive style of filming where the viewer feels as if they are seeing things through the photographer’s own eyes in real time, usually with an action camera and a wide angle lens and often with the photographer’s own hands, bike or vehicle in the shot.
Post (production)
‘Post’ is often used as shorthand for ‘post production’, a term which started out in filmmaking to describe drawing together all the components of editing ‘post filming’ to produce a polished, edited, finished production. It’s now been hijacked to indicate video editing generally and now also still image editing, as in “I’ll fix it in post”.
Pop filter
A small mesh shield placed directly in front of a microphone for when it’s used close to the speaker’s mouth. This reduces or eliminates ‘plosive’ speech sounds, which are especially strong with words containing the letter ‘p’. This can produce a loud ‘pop’ sound from the mic.
Polar pattern
The polar pattern of a microphone describes how it picks up sound from different directions. Simple microphones are ‘omnidirectional’ and pick up sound equally from all directions, but many are ‘cardioid’ or ‘shotgun’ types designed to be more sensitive in specific directions to reduce unwanted background noise.
Places (software)
A generic term for tools or modes in software or devices which show where pictures were taken. Smartphones will tag any photos you take with them with the current location automatically. Very few cameras have the GPS hardware necessary to do this, but it is possible to add the location information later by dragging photos on to a map in programs like Lightroom or Apple Photos. You can use the Places feature to find images taken at a specific location.
Parallax
The small difference in the relative positions of objects when seen from two slightly different positions. It’s not a problem in cameras with through-the-lens viewing, but is an issue with cameras that have separate ‘direct vision’ type viewfinders. These sometimes have parallax-adjusted framing guides for photographing objects close to the camera.
Panoramic head (tripods)
A tripod head designed specifically for panoramic photography, usually with a precisely graduated panoramic axis and often with a camera rail to allow fore and aft movement of the camera so that its optical center is directly over the axis of rotation. This helps reduce or eliminate parallax errors.
Pan and tilt head
Describes a tripod head where you can move the pan and tilt axes separately, as opposed to a ball head, which can move freely in all directions at once. Strictly, while video heads might just have pan and tilt movements, the correct term for heads designed for still photography is a ‘three way head’, since there is a third axis for tilting the camera vertically.
Onion skin bokeh
With ‘perfect’ bokeh, out of focus highlights are reproduced as clean discs, but sometimes these discs have concentric rings of darkness reminiscent of the rings inside an onion when it’s sliced open.
ON1
Publisher of ON1 Photo RAW, associated plug-ins, tools and content.
Noise floor
Sensors produce regular noise, caused by amplifying the signal at high ISOs or when brightening underexposed areas (shadow noise) but they also produce regular random electronic background noise which remains constant, and this is sometimes called the ‘noise floor’. It’s baseline level of noise, and any regular image noise is present on top of this.
Nikon 1 system
Early mirrorless camera system launched by Nikon and based around a a 1-inch sensor size smaller than other interchangeable lens formats but with smaller camera bodies and, especially smaller lenses. It did not catch on and was discontinued a little later, though 1-inch sensors are still used today by Sony and Canon in compact camera models.
Nikon
One of the best-known camera brands, now known mostly for its DSLR and mirrorless camera range and lenses. Along with Canon, it’s one of a handful of top brands for both professionals and amateurs.
Monochrome
Another term for black and white photography. Some camera makers offer ‘monochrome’ in-camera picture styles, and photographers will often talk about ‘monochrome’ photography.
M mount (Leica)
Bayonet lens mount used by Leica M rangefinder cameras to this day, and not to be confused with the L mount mirrorless lens mount used by its mirrorless cameras. Both Leica and some third party makers such as Voigtländer still make lenses in the Leica M mount.
Minimum focus distance
The closest focus distance of a lens. With zoom lenses this may vary according to the focal length setting, and there can also be a difference between the minimum autofocus and manual focus distances.
Merge (panorama)
Using software to ‘stitch together’ overlapping frames to create a wider image than can be captured in a single photograph. Many photo editors now include panorama merge tools as standard, and these can automatically adjust perspective for each frame, correct optical distortions and blend any exposure variations seamlessly.
Memory Stick (Sony)
A long, narrow memory card format developed by Sony which evolved into a smaller Memory Stick Duo format which could be used, for a time, in Sony cameras alongside regular SD cards in a dual-format card slot. The Memory Stick/Duo format has now been quietly abandoned in favor of regular SD cards and the CFexpress format.
Maximum magnification
This tells you how large objects will appear at a lens’s closest focusing distance and it’s a good guide to how effective they will be for close ups. A true macro lens will offer a 1x magnification ratio (so-called ‘life size’ reproduction) on the camera sensor. Most regular lenses have maximum magnification in the range 0.2x-0.5x.
Macro photography
Strictly speaking, macro photography where a real-life object is captured at the same size on the sensor. So a bee 10mm long would form an image 10mm long on the sensor. True macro photography needs dedicated ‘macro’ lenses.
M42 mount
A standardized screw fit lens mount size used extensively for SLR film cameras before bayonet fittings took over. Used by Pentax, Practika and others.
Lyre (Rycote)
A flexible microphone shock mount specially designed to absorb vibration to improve the quality of sound recordings when the mic is mounted on a camera’s accessory shoe, for example, or a portable video rig. Sometimes they come as standard with microphones but you can also get them separately.
Lossy/lossless compression
Digital files are usually compressed to save storage space. Lossless compression is the best because it simply ‘closes up the gaps’ in the data without losing any actual data, while lossy compression produces much smaller files but at the expense of some of the data – though the difference may not be apparent to the naked eye.
Log profile
Used in video to capture a wider brightness and color range with deliberately ‘flat’ looking footage designed to be edited or ‘graded’ later in video editing software. Different camera makers offer their own versions, such as S-log (Sony) and V-log (Panasonic).
L mount
Lens mount originally created by Leica but then developed jointly with Panasonic and Sigma to be used on mirrorless cameras from all three companies as part of an ‘L-Mount Alliance’.
Linear motor
A drive unit for autofocus lenses which works via a contact-free electromagnetic linear action rather than the rotational action of a conventional motor. It’s used by Sony, Fujifilm and Sigma in many of their lenses to provide silent high speed, high torque autofocus.
Linear DNG
A kind of part-processed DNG RAW file where the RAW sensor data has been demosaiced and certain processing steps applied such as lens corrections and noise reduction, but the files retain the extended dynamic range and color range as regular RAW files, and get treated as RAW files in software.
LCD backlight
Some DSLRs have an LCD status panel on the top plate for basic shooting information, battery life remaining and other items. This uses a high-contrast display with no backlighting to save power, but it can be hard to see in dim light, so there’s usually a backlight switch too.
Laowa
Chinese lens maker specializing in ultra-wide and macro lenses. Laowa lenses are typically manual focus, but with high levels of optical quality and specifications (focal length and/or maximum aperture) outside those of own-brand lenses.
Landscape format
Where the shot is taken with the camera held horizontally – pictures are wider than they are tall. As opposed to ‘portrait format’, where the camera is held vertically for photos that are taller than they are wide.
L39 mount
39mm screw mount historically used by Leica and many other camera makers as a standardized lens fitting until the wider uptake of bayonet-fit lenses.
K mount (Pentax)
The lens mount used by all current Pentax DSLR cameras and a development of the Pentax K bayonet mount used in its later film SLRs. The mount is the same, but some lenses are made for Pentax full frame DSLRs while others are solely for the smaller APS-C format cameras.
Kelvin
A measurement of temperature in degrees Kelvin that’s used in photography for white balance measurements. For example, where daylight is reckoned to have a color temperature of 5200 degrees Kelvin. Many cameras have an option to set the white balance in Kelvin, as do many photo editors.
JPEG vs RAW
Most digital photos are shot as JPEG images. This is a universal image file format that uses sophisticated compression to keep the files small and manageable. JPEGs are created by processing the RAW data captured by the camera. Some cameras let you save these RAW files instead. The files are larger and you need to process them later on a computer, but they offer the potential for better quality.
IPTC metadata
IPTC is a standardized system for embedded photo information in digital image files and for use by image cataloging and asset management software. It consists of a series of predefined ‘fields’ for copyright information, keywords, titles, descriptions and more. It’s entirely optional but often useful.
Internal storage (cameras)
Some cameras have in-built flash memory for storing photos and videos, often in addition to a memory card slot for removable storage.
Image Size setting (cameras)
Digital cameras offer a choice of image sizes. Normally, you’d choose ‘Large’, which gives you the maximum resolution offered by the sensor. But most cameras also offer ‘Medium’ settings (around half the pixels) and ‘Small’ (around a quarter the pixels).
High end compact
More advanced type of compact camera which attempts to match the controls and features of a digital SLR or mirrorless camera but in a smaller body. High-end compacts have larger sensors than regular point-and-shoot models and better lenses with wider maximum apertures.
HEIF format
A more modern alternative to the JPEG format which is starting to appear on some camera models. HEIF files offer even better file size compression than JPEGs without sacrificing image quality but can also be saved as 10-bit files (depending on the device) which will be better at survive editing processes without as much degradation.
Healing
A process or set of tools for removing an object from a picture or repairing a blemish simply by painting over it. It’s like cloning, except that you don’t have to define a nearby clone ‘source’ to use for the repair – the healing tool chooses and matches pixels automatically.
H.264/H.265
Two video ‘codecs’ in widespread use today and probably the most popular in smartphones, mirrorless cameras and other video capture devices. The H.264 codec is older and a little less efficient in terms of storage but easier for devices to play back and edit. H.265 is more efficient but places heavier demands on processors when editing.
Gimbal head
A special tripod head design which suspends a camera and lens combination in a balanced way that allows for smooth camera movement and subject tracking. Typically used with heavier, longer telephoto lenses with their own tripod collars/mounts.
Gimbal (stabilizer)
A powered camera support which keeps the camera steady and provides smooth camera movements, typically across three axes, for filming. Gimbals are typically used for smooth handheld filming techniques and for carefully controlled camera movements.
Generative Fill
New AI technology in Adobe Photoshop that can add objects to scenes and merge them with surrounding details using written text prompts. You select an area, type in what object(s) you want to add and then choose one of Photoshop’s AI generated alternatives.
Generative Expand
A new feature in Adobe Photoshop which can extend images at the edges to make them larger, using AI to add new areas and objects either from user-entered text prompts, or simply by extending the scene according to what’s already in it.
Follow focus
A technique for manually maintaining focus on a subject as they change distance or position. It’s under human control, as opposed to subject-tracking autofocus, which is subject to the camera’s autofocus system. You can get follow focus attachments for lenses to make these focus movements smoother and easier. These are typically used for video rather than stills photography.
Folders
This is an important distinction in image cataloging and browsing software. Some programs can display the contents of your folders exactly as they are on your hard disk, but others supplement these with Albums or Collections which bring images together in ‘virtual’ collections without changing their location on your computer.
Focus priority mode
An option in a camera’s continuous shooting mode where the camera will only release the shutter when it’s achieved focus. This can reduce the speed at which frames are captured but should ensure that more are in focus.
Focus bracketing
Shooting a series of identical frames with slightly different focus points with the intention of picking the best one later or, usually, to use ‘focus stacking’ software to merge them into a single image with much more depth of field than can be achieved with a single shot.
F mount (Nikon)
Lens mount used by Nikon DSLR cameras and a development of its earlier film SLR camera lens mount. Replaced by the Nikon Z mount on Nikon mirrorless cameras.