CAMERA ANATOMY

• SLR / DSLR: A type of camera where the viewfinder looks through the same lens that the camera uses to make exposures.
  
  
• VIEWFINDER: The part of a camera that the photographer looks through to compose and to focus the picture.
  
  
• FOCAL PLANE: The point in a camera where light is focused by the lens, and is where the CCD or film is positioned.
  
  
• CCD SENSOR: (Charged coupled device) The sensor device used to capture light and convert it to a pixel based image inside a digital camera.
  
  
• SHUTTER: The device on a camera that opens and allows light to pass to the sensor or film for a set period of time in order make an exposure
  
  
• SHUTTER SPEED: The amount of TIME that the shutter is open, as measured in seconds or fractions of a second.
  
  
• APERTURE: An opening that changes in size to control the amount of light passing through the lens of the camera.
  
  
• F-STOP: A fraction that measures of the size of the aperture opening on a camera.
  
  
• ISO / SENSITIVITY: A system used to measure and adjust how sensitive a digital camera is to light.
  
  
• HOT SHOE: A mounting point on the top of some cameras to attach a more powerful external flash unit or other accessory.
  
  
• RED EYE MODE: A pulse of light from a flash tube which forces a subject's pupils to contract, lessening the risk of redeye.
  
  
• WHITE BALANCE: A manual adjustment process of removing unrealistic color casts so objects that are white appear white in the image.
  
  
• HISTOGRAM: A bar graph to evaluate brightness and contrast, showing pixels exposed in an image with 256 shades from black (L) to white (R)
  
  

SHOOTING MODES

• APERTURE PRIORITY MODE: Shooting mode where the user manually sets the aperture and ISO, the camera selects the correct shutter speed for exposure, often used to control depth of field.
  
  
• SHUTTER PRIORITY MODE: Shooting mode where the user manually sets the shutter speed and ISO, the camera selects the correct aperture for exposure, often used for moving subjects.
  
  
• MANUAL MODE: The shooting mode in which the user has the greatest amount of control over all the camera settings.
  
  
• EXPOSURE COMPENSATION: Over-ride the automatic exposure settings where the camera's meter is incorrect such as backlighting.
  
  

AUTOFOCUS MODES

• AUTO FOCUS: Automatically focuses on the subject in the center of the viewfinder.  Some cameras can focus on a user selected point or area.
  
  
• SPOT METERING: Reading light levels from a very small area, typically 1-3% of an image area.
  
  
• CENTER WEIGHTED METER: Averages the exposure across the entire frame, but gives added emphasis (weight) to the central part of the image.
  
  
• AI SERVO MODE: Pressing the shutter button halfway auto-focuses and continually re-focuses as the distance to subject changes.
  
  
• ONE-SHOT MODE: Pressing the shutter button halfway auto-focuses on the subject and locks until the shutter is released.
  
  
• CONTINUOUS SHOOTING MODE: Camera shoots pictures continuously if shutter release is held down.
  
  

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