Cameras

In stills photography, this is the camera’s maximum continuous shooting speed – the number of frames it can capture per second. In video, this is the number of frames of video per second, typically 30fps, though sometimes 25fps or 24fps.

Sigma’s Foveon sensor uses a unique layered design to capture blue, green and red light on separate layers. It mimics the multi-layer construction of colour film.

Completely wiping a memory card so that you’re starting again with a clean slate, so to speak. It’s not essential if you only ever use one camera, but if you use the same card in more than one it will clear up unwanted files and folders left behind by other cameras.

A mode where the flash is made to fire whether the light is low or not. Normally, the camera won’t fire the flash in bright light, but forced flash mode overrides this. Flash can be useful for fill-in light for portraits, even in daylight, and especially if your subject’s face is in shadow.

A hardware and software technique for getting more depth of field in close-up and macro shots. You take a series of images at slightly different focus settings, then use focus stacking software to blend together the sharpest areas of each into a single image.

Autofocus systems can focus at different points around the frame – the more advanced the autofocus system, the greater the number of AF points. You can either leave the camera to choose the autofocus point with ‘auto AF’ mode (or ‘auto area AF’) or select it yourself with single-point AF mode. Some cameras offer face-detection or subject-tracking AF options.

A special display mode designed to help with manual focusing when using an LCD display or electronic viewfinder. It exaggerates the edges of objects when they come into focus and can give a much more visible focus ‘snap’ than the regular display.

Camera autofocus systems work in one of three modes: single-shot autofocus (usually abbreviated to ‘S’), continuous autofocus (‘C’) and manual focus (‘M’). If you’re taking one photo at a time, use single-shot autofocus – the camera will focus once and then fire. If you’re using continuous shooting mode, use continuous autofocus – the camera will keep refocusing all the time the shutter button is held down.

The type of shutter used by interchangeable lens cameras (ILCs) such as DSLRs and compact system cameras. The shutter is mounted directly in front of the sensor (at the focal plane) and shutter ‘curtains’ open to start the exposure and close to end it.

A small marking on the top plate of some cameras which indicates the position of the focal plane – the sensor surface – inside the camera. You’re unlikely to need this unless you are using manual macro photography setups based on precise focus and magnification values.

One or more buttons on more advanced cameras which can be used for quick access to useful settings such as picture style, white balance, ISO setting or more. They will have default settings already which you may find useful, so you don’t have to change them.

Nikon’s name for its ‘program shift’ control, where you can change the balance of lens aperture and shutter speed without having to leave the program AE mode – you simply turn the command dial until the camera displays the lens aperture or shutter speed you want.

Digital SLRs and compact system cameras use focal plane shutters and these have a design limitation – there is a maximum speed at which the whole sensor is exposed at once. This is the maximum flash synchronisation speed. Beyond this, the sensor is exposed in a moving strip, which is no good for flash.

Programmable hardware inside the camera (somewhere between hardware and software) that handles the camera’s controls, functions and features. Camera makers sometimes release firmware updates to fix bugs or add new features.

Image settings on some cameras which attempt to recreate the colours and tonal quality of classic films. Fuji offers Velvia, Provia and Astia film simulations to replicate its films of the same name. You can choose these in-camera if you shoot JPEGs, or apply them later to RAW files.

Some autofocus systems identify human faces within a scene and then adjust the focus and exposure for that face. It’s popular on compact cameras and is used on some DSLRs and mirrorless cameras too.

A tiny blind in the viewfinder eyepiece that stops light entering and upsetting the exposure (normally the eyepiece is covered by your eye). It can be useful for long exposures or other shots where you’ve stepped away from the camera. Some cameras come with a small viewfinder cap fixed to the shoulder strap.

A numerical value given to the amount of light in a scene. For example, bright sunlight might produce an EV of 17. In practice, cameras deal only in shutter speeds and lens apertures and you’re only likely to see EV values on handheld light meters.

Digital cameras offer finer exposure adjustments than whole stops (EV) values. By default, they offer 1/3EV adjustments to the shutter speed, lens aperture and ISO setting – though some cameras offer 1/2EV adjustments as an alternative, in line with older film cameras.

Some cameras can simulate the effect of exposure adjustments on the LCD screen or electronic viewfinder (this is not possible with an optical viewfinder), making the image lighter or darker as you adjust the exposure. It’s not a precise guide to exposure but it can be useful.

This controls the camera’s operation, from fully-automatic (the camera controls everything), semi-automatic (you can choose the shutter speed or lens aperture) to manual (you choose all the settings).

A term used to describe a film’s tolerance to overexposure and underexposure and its ability to capture tones in the brightest and darkest parts of a scene, even in high-contrast lighting. The modern-day equivalent with digital sensors is dynamic range, though sensors rarely approach the dynamic  range (exposure latitude) of film.

Nikon’s own brand name for the image processors used in its digital cameras. More powerful processors are needed for higher-resolution sensors and faster continuous shooting speeds, and play a part in noise reduction at high ISOs and image quality generally.

Date, time and shooting information embedded invisibly in digital photos by the camera. It includes the shutter speed, lens aperture, ISO setting and more. EXIF data is useful later on if you want to see how certain pictures were shot or search for photos based on their settings.

Used to adjust the camera’s automatic exposure setting to make the picture come out lighter or darker. Camera meters aren’t foolproof and sometimes you do need to make adjustments. Doing it this way is quicker than swapping to full manual control.

Essentially, this is a tiny LCD display seen through a magnifying eyepiece. They’re used on some bridge cameras and high-end compact cameras, and on many mirrorless cameras. They replace the optical viewing system you get with a DSLR.

A feature which uses the camera’s autofocus mechanism to confirm focus even when you’re using manual focus mode. You turn the focus ring and the AF point lights up when the subject below it comes into focus. It can be useful when it’s hard to judge sharp focus by eye.

Many cameras offer a range of special image effects, usually taking over some or all of the camera controls and using in-camera image processing too. Examples include vintage sepia toning, tilt-shift ‘miniature’ effects, toy camera or cross-processing effects.

Camera makers quote two megapixel figures. The bigger, ‘gross’ figure counts all the photosites on the sensor, but many of those around the edges are used for calibration and other technical purposes, so makers also quote the ‘effective’ pixels, which are the ones actually used to make the image. This is the important figure.

A focus mode used on Nikon cameras for use in continuous shooting mode. You follow the subject using a group of autofocus points working in unison to track and maintain focus more intelligently and with a wider margin of error than a single focus point.

This is Nikon’s name for its APS-C format DSLRs. Some Nikon lenses are designed specifically for these smaller format models, and they include ‘DX’ in the lens name to signify that the can’t be used on the full frame models (well, they can, but only in a ‘DX crop’ mode).

A system offered with Nikon DSLRs for dealing with dust spots on the sensor. You take a reference shot of a white card which highlights any dust spots, and then Nikon image-editing software can use this to target dust spots on your photos and process them out.

This is an interchangeable lens camera where you see an optical image in the viewfinder showing what the lens sees. They do this using a mirror inside the body that reflects the image seen by the lens up into the viewfinder. When you take a picture, the mirror flips up out of the way so that the image passes through the body to the sensor at the back of the camera. DSLRs work in the same way as SLR (single lens reflex) film cameras, but substitute a digital sensor for the film.

A viewfinder that’s separate to the camera’s lens and shows a view of the scene ‘directly’. These are found on many older cameras and a few current models. The framing is less accurate, but direct vision viewfinders are bright and clear.

A small knob or lever next to the viewfinder which you use to adjust the focus of the eyepiece to match your own vision. The information in the viewfinder should appear sharp without you having to strain to bring it into focus.

Process where the camera (or RAW conversion software) takes the ‘mosaic’ of red, green and blue pixel data from the sensor and converts it into full-colour information.

Exposure adjustment tool offered in some Nikon software for brightening the darkest parts of a picture without altering the rest. It’s a less advanced version of the Active D-Lighting system built into Nikon cameras. Regular D-Lighting just brightens the shadows – it’s too late to adjust the exposure at the software stage.

This is where you use the camera to take a picture of a neutral tone, such as a ‘grey card’, and then create a custom white balance preset to ‘neutralise’ the colour of the light.

Many lenses designed for APS-C format cameras can be used on larger full frame cameras, but because the lens image circle is designed for a smaller sensor the camera will switch to a ‘crop mode’ that only uses this smaller area on the sensor.

Wireless flash system used by Nikon to control one or more external Speedlights from one place. Speedlights can even be combined in ‘groups’ for more power or more sophisticated lighting effects.

A relatively simple autofocus system that measures the contrast around the edges of objects and then adjusts the focus to see if the contrast goes up or down. When the contrast is highest the subject is in focus. Contrast AF is accurate because it uses the image being captured by the sensor itself, but because it uses trial and error it’s not as fast as phase detection autofocus, the system used by digital SLRs and an increasing number of mirrorless compact system cameras (CSCs).

Another name for ‘mirrorless’ cameras and used to distinguish them from digital SLRs. They are ‘system’ cameras in that they take interchangeable lenses and accessories – just like a digital SLR. However, they don’t have a DSLR’s mirror mechanism, and this ‘mirrorless’ design makes them more compact.

An older, larger memory card type still used in many professional cameras. It’s around twice the size of the more recent SD card format and thicker too. Compact Flash memory card capacity is measured in the same way in GB (Gigabytes) but speed standards may vary, especially for video use. Professional CF cards offer the same speeds and capacities as pro SD cards.

You might imagine that this refers to smaller, pocket-sized cameras but the definition is a little wider than that and includes any camera with a fixed (non-interchangeable) lens. ‘Compact cameras’ include regular point-and-shoot compact cameras, high-end compacts and bridge cameras.

A flash control mode on some Nikon DSLRs and external flashguns (Speedlights) which can fire other Speedlights remotely via infra-red. It’s possible to control quite complex lighting setups in this way, and it’s part of Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System).

A traditional technical measurement for the white balance setting that uses temperature values in degrees Kelvin rather than named presets like ‘Direct Sunlight’, ‘Cloudy’ and so on. Colour temperature is used for choosing and controlling the colour of photographic lighting equipment and you can use it an alternative to white balance presets on more advanced cameras.

This is the most common type of sensor in today’s digital cameras. One of its main advantages is its lower heat output compared to the CCD sensors used in the past. This makes it particularly suitable for cameras with larger sensors and mirrorless cameras where the sensor is always ‘on’.

CIPA stands for the Camera and Imaging Products Association, an independent body which reports on the state of the camera industry and sets up standards for measuring different aspects of camera performance, notably battery life. When a camera quotes CIPA after the battery life, you know it’s been measured in standardised conditions and it can be compared directly with the battery life of other cameras that quote the CIPA test in their results.

CFexpress cards are a new format for very high speed data capture. They are physically identical to the XQD cards currently in use in some cameras – many cameras which use XQD cards are expected to get firmware upgrades to get CFexpress compatibility. CFexpress looks set to become a major high speed card format of the future.

CFast cards resemble Compact Flash cards physically, but they use a different data bus and a different set of pins. They are not physically compatible. They offer faster data transfer rates than regular Compact Flash cards and have been used in some high end video cameras, for example.

This is a grid of tiny filters placed over a sensor so that each photosite captures only red, green or blue light. This is the only way a single-layer sensor can be made to capture full color images. The most common arrangement is the Bayer array.

This is one of the various light metering patterns offered on most digital cameras. It’s a relatively crude system which averages the light across the whole scene but gives special emphasis to the centre. It’s less reliable for for novices shooting in a wide variety of conditions, but its simple response to scenes actually makes it easier for more experienced photographers to interpret the results.

An older type of digital camera sensor still used on a few specialised cameras but now mostly replaced with more efficient CMOS sensors. These produce less heat and noise and are better suited to use in cameras with full time live view and video features.

Digital cameras come in a multitude of different types and sizes, and some of the jargon can be quite unhelpful. For example, ‘compact’ cameras aren’t necessarily compact and the real difference is that they have non-removable lenses. DSLRs and CSCs are both examples of interchangeable lens cameras, or ILCs, and these are differentiated by their design, sensor size and intended market. Most novices start off with a compact camera, move up to a DSLR or CSC when they become enthusiasts and then upgrade to a full-frame or medium format camera if they turn professional.

This is another name for ‘continuous shooting’ mode and it’s the term used by cheaper point-and-shoot cameras – though it’s actually the same thing. In this mode, the camera keeps taking pictures all the time you hold down the shutter button, right up until the time you release the button or the camera’s internal memory buffer fills up and it has to stop to process and save the pictures to the memory card.

The ‘buffer’ is short-term internal memory used by the camera to store image data captured by the sensor while it’s waiting to be processed and saved to the memory card. It becomes important in the camera’s continuous shooting mode because the camera can capture photos faster than it can save them, so before long this buffer fills up. The larger the buffer, the longer you can keep shooting.

Framing guides in direct vision viewfinders which show the area that will be captured by the lens – with interchangeable lens cameras there may be frames for different lens focal lengths. The frames are designed to catch the light and appear ‘bright’.

This is a compact camera with an extremely long zoom range, sometimes as much as 50x, 60x or more, and designed to act as a ‘bridge’ between regular compact digital cameras and digital SLRs. The lens can’t be swapped, though, and bridge cameras (mostly) have small sensors, which restricts the picture quality.

Most camera sensors use a single layer of photosites (pixels). These are only sensitive to light, not colour, so a mosaic of red, green and blue filters (the ‘bayer pattern’) is placed on top of the sensor’s photosites so that individually they capture red, green or blue light. When the camera processes the sensor data to produce an image, it ‘demosaics’ the red, green and blue data, using colour information from surrounding photosites to ‘interpolate’ full colour data for each pixel.

This is usually quoted as the number of shots you can expect to be able to take before the camera’s battery runs out. Compact cameras may only be able to take a couple of hundred pictures, while a DSLR might be able to take a thousand. Battery life is normally quoted using the CIPA standard so that battery life can be compared in standardised conditions.

This is an accessory that attaches to the bottom of some DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. It provides a longer battery life for long periods of shooting and it’s popular with sports and action photographers taking lots of shots in continuous shooting mode. Battery grips often have duplicate controls for shooting with the camera in a vertical position, which also makes them ideal for busy portrait and fashion photographers.

A battery charger is a separate device plugged into a mains wall socket. You remove the battery from the device and plug it into the charger for recharging.

Most cameras use dedicated rechargeable lithium-ion cells, but some accessories like external flashguns, battery grips and hotshoe mounted LEd panels use regular AA cells instead.

This is a focus mode where the camera automatically selects a focus point, usually choosing the object closest to the camera. It’s an effective ‘standby’ autofocus mode.

Astia is a transparency film made by Fujifilm, and now incorporated into its digital cameras’ film simulation modes. The digital version has similar saturation to Velvia but softer contrast and less obvious color shifts.

This is where the camera measures the light levels in the scene using its in-built light meter, works out the exposure value and then sets a shutter speed and lens aperture to give the correct exposure. Practically all cameras have auto exposure systems and its only the more advanced models which offer manual exposure.

A simple shooting mode offered on almost all cameras. In this mode, the camera automatically takes care of all the settings, from exposure to focusing and (usually) flash.

This is where the camera measures the color of the light in a scene and attempts to correct it so that the color is neutral – the color is balances so that white will appear as white.

This is a very simple type of exposure reading where the camera’s light meter just measures the total amount of light in the whole scene. It often leads to underexposure because bright areas in the scene have a disproportionate effect. Today’s digital cameras offer a range of more sophisticated exposure metering patterns and only a few still over averaged metering amongst these – some photographers still like it because although it’s a crude way of measuring the light, it’s quite predictable and easy to interpret.

Using a button on the back of the camera to activate autofocus, not the shutter button. It’s a way of separating the act of focusing from the act of taking the picture. It takes some learning, but it has advantages in many situations.

A newer type of sensor where the circuitry has been moved to the back so that the light receptors on the front are unobstructed. This gives a modest but useful improvement in light-gathering power, digital noise and overall image quality, but it’s not the dramatic technical leap that manufacturers often suggest.

This is a relatively uncommon sensor size mid-way between APS-C and full frame. Canon used it for its EOS-1D high-speed pro sports/press photography DSLRs before these were merged with the introduction of the full frame EOS-1D X. Canon has since announced the development of a 250MP APS-H format sensor, though this has not yet been used in any commercial product. 

This is the most common sensor size in cameras designed for enthusiasts and experts and it’s found in consumer DSLRs, mirrorless compact system cameras and some high-end compacts. APS-C sensors are around half the size of a full-frame sensor or the 35mm negative, and measure approximately 24 x 16mm. They have a crop factor of 1.5x, which means that you have to multiply the lens’s focal length by 1.5x to get its effective focal length in 35mm/full frame camera terms.

This is an exposure mode on more advanced cameras where you choose the lens aperture yourself and the camera then sets a shutter speed that gives you the correct exposure. This gives you creative control over depth of field, for example, without losing the convenience of automatic exposure.

‘Alpha’ is generic name still used by Sony for all its interchangeable lenses, but it also refers to the older Alpha range of SLT cameras. This can be confusing. Sony has made cameras in two types – SLT (single lens translucent) and mirrorless models. Both are Alphas, but the Alpha A9 (mirrorless) and Alpha A99 II (SLT) are entirely different cameras with different lens mounts and lens ranges. Sony’s SLTs use Alpha A-mount lenses, while the mirrorless models use E-mount lenses.

This is distinct from the autofocus points, patterns or zones selected. The AF mode is simply WHEN the camera focuses – either once, when you half-press the shutter release (AF-S), or continually while the button is kept down (AF-C), for example in continuous or burst shooting mode.

Most cameras use the main sensor for focusing, but digital SLRs have a different system. They use a separate phase detection autofocus sensor which must be precisely aligned with the main sensor for the focus to be accurate. Sometimes this and different lens designs can lead to small misalignments and slight focus errors, so more advanced DSLRs have an autofocus fine tune feature to correct any discrepancies.

Digital cameras use an array of AF points (focus points) to cover different areas of the frame, but they don’t necessarily cover all of it. The AF coverage is the percentage of the frame width and height that contains focus points. Wider coverage is a selling point.

In dim lighting the camera’s autofocus system may struggle to lock on to your subject, but on some cameras a lamp on the front of the camera will light up in low light and shines a bright, tightly focused beam of light at your subject to help the autofocus system lock on. Not all cameras have or need this kind of focus assistance.

An area on the screen where the camera can check for sharp focus. Typically, the more focus points the better because this gives you more choice about where to focus and usually indicates a faster and more sophisticated focus system.

AE/AF lock is used to fix exposure settings and focus point before taking a photo, offering flexibility in camera control.

This is a professional colour space offered by more advanced cameras and it captures a slightly wider range of colours than the usual sRGB colour space used by most consumer devices. It can be useful if pictures are destined for commercial print production, but it does introduce complications with colour profiles and monitor calibration.

An exposure mode on some Nikon digital cameras which balances up the exposure in high-contrast scenes. The camera reduces the exposure to make sure it captures bright highlight detail and then processes the image to brighten up dark shadows. It can be applied in different strength settings.

Black and white film simulation mode added to newer Fujifilm cameras. It’s designed to give richer, more intense tonal rendition than the regular monochrome film simulation.