Definition

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.

35mm film cameras, initially designed for the film industry, remain popular. Full-frame digital cameras with 36 x 24mm sensors are their direct counterparts.