Unit 57: Photography and Photographic Practice Terminology (P1, P2, M1, M2)Term Explanation of term e.g.

what it is used for / the effect it has on your images

Examples

Shutter Speed It is the most popular word used to discuss exposure time. It represents the time that the shutter remains open when taking a photograph.

ISO Refers to the film speed. The most common ISO camera speed settings are: 100, 200, 400 and 800. The lower the ISO number, the slower the speed. The higher the ISO number, for example 1600 the faster the speed.

Aperture & Depth of field (F stop)

Aperture describes an adjustable opening inside your camera lens that controls the amount of light striking the film. As the size of the aperture changes, the angle of light striking the film also changes.Aperture is measured by F-Stop on your camera controls. F-Stop settings represent a ratio derived from the size of the lens opening and focal length.

Automatic Exposure A camera in automatic exposure mode automatically calculates and adjusts the exposure settings to match the subjects mid-tone to mid-tone of the photograph.

Manual Exposure In manual mode you can set both the shutter speed and aperture to give you full control over the exposure of your photo. This can be used to ensure the same exposure is used in a number of your photos.

Colour Balance This is the global adjustment of the intensities of the colours used. For example red, blue and green, which are primary colours. An important goal of this adjustment is to render specific colours particularly neutral colours.

Composition This is the placement or arrangement of visual effects.

Rule of thirds Also known as the rule of thumb. Or guideline which applies to the composition of photographs.  The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.

Complementary Colours

These are a pair of colours that are of opposite hue in some colour models. For example blue and yellow.

Analogous colours Analogous colours are colours that are adjacent to each other on the colour wheel. Some examples are green, yellow green, and yellow or red, red violet and violet. These are often found in nature and are nice to look at.

Macro This is extremely close up photography usually of very small objects. In which the size of the object in the photo is bigger than the actual life size object.