Manual Mode

What Is Manual Mode For On A Camera? Manual mode on a camera allows the photographer to determine the exposure of an image by letting them select an aperture value and a shutter speed value.  This give you ultimate control over the look of the photo, but you must have a deep understanding of exposure, and how shutter speed and aperture affect it. When most people start out with photography, they let the camera work out the correct exposure in a fully automatic mode.  On a DSLR, this mode is often labelled with a P, for “Program”.  As knowledge of …

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Medium Format

What Is Medium Format When Talking About Photography? In photography the term ‘medium format’ refers to a type of film or digital image sensor that is larger than 35mm ‘full-frame’, but smaller than 4″x5″ ‘large format’.  the majority of medium format film is produced in what is known as ‘120 roll’ measuring 6cm x 6cm. Medium format cameras are favoured by some photographers due to their extremely high image quality, often seeing use in military intelligence applications.  Traditionally medium format cameras are much larger than their 35mm counterparts but 2016 saw the release of the relatively small Hasselblad X1D, the …

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Metadata

What Does the Term Metadata Mean When Talking About Photography? Metadata when related to digital photography refers to a set of data that describes an individual image file. Metadata is stored when an image is taken and can contain information on where and when an image was captured, specific exposure information, and even information related to image ownership and copyright. The amount of metadata captured alongside an image can be defined within a cameras settings allowing a photographer to taylor the metadata recorded to their specific needs. In post processing and image storage metadata can be used to filter and …

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Micro Lenses

What Are Micro Lenses When Talking About Photography? When you think about a digital camera you probably imagine a body mounted with a single lens, the truth however is that a modern camera actually uses many (sometimes tens of millions!) of tiny lenses called Micro Lenses to help the camera sensor capture light. Micro lenses are normally mounted on top of the light-gathering portion of pixels on the camera sensor to direct light onto the individual pixels. They can also be angled along the edges of a camera sensor in order to capture and redirect light back into the sensor’s …

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Movie Clip

What Is a Movie Clip When Talking About Cameras and Photography? A ‘movie clip’ is motion sequence captured in AVI, MOV or MPEG formats. Movie clips can be recorded on most digital cameras using the camera’s ‘movie mode’ which is usually accessed by pressing a dedicated button. When recording in movie mode a camera will capture both video and sound to a digital video file stored on the cameras onboard memory. Most point and shoot cameras do not allow control of exposure settings whilst recording video and often suffer from the recording of unwanted sound such as lens zoom and focusing motors. …

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Movie Mode

What Does Movie Mode Mean When Talking About Cameras and Photography? When talking about modern digital cameras ‘movie mode’ refers to a camera mode specifically designed for capturing moving pictures. Movie mode can be found on most digital cameras, from basic point and shoot cameras all the way up to professional DSLR’s and is usually accessed by pressing a dedicated button. When recording in movie mode a camera will capture both video and sound to a digital video file stored on the cameras onboard memory. Many point and shoot cameras do not allow control of exposure settings whilst recording video and …

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Multi-Point Focusing

What Is Multi-Point Focusing and How Is It Used in Photography? Modern cameras often have multiple focus points spread across an active area of the cameras frame. This allows a photographer to compose a scene and then select the single focus point closest to the position to the scene subject, or alternatively to focus on the subject using the center focus point and then recompose. Multi-point focusing allows the shooter to select a starting focus point, but the camera will automatically track a subject within a frame as they move, thus utilizing multiple focus points. This technique is particularly handy …

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Multi-Zone Focusing

What Is Multi-Zone Focusing and How Is It Used When Taking Photos? ‘Multi-Zone focusing’ is an auto focusing mode which determines which zone within a scene (center, upper left, right, lower left, right) should be used for determining an images focus point. Multi-zone focusing is often used in point and shoot cameras to determine where in a frame the image subject is, the camera will then perform auto focusing based on a point in the zone within which it determines the subject is located. Multi-zone focusing is not always completely accurate, often becoming confused when a scene contains multiple objects …

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NiCad

What Does NiCad Mean and How Is It Related to Cameras and Photography? When talking about cameras and photography equipment NiCad is the name given to a common type of rechargeable battery. NiCad batteries were one of the first successful standards of rechargeable batteries used in digital cameras. NiCad stands for ‘nickel-cadium’ and relates to the materials used within the battery to provide an electrical output. Nikel-cadium batteries have now widely been superseded by NiMH batteries which typically hold two or three times the charge capacity of their NiCad counterparts. NiCad batteries are however still available for equipment originally designed …

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NiMH

What Does NiMH Mean and How Is It Related to Cameras and Photography? When talking about modern cameras the acronym NiMH is the name given to a common type of rechargeable battery found in many digital cameras and flash units. NiMH stands for ‘nickel-metal hydrate’ and relates to the materials used within the battery to provide an electrical output. NiMH batteries typically have two or three times the charge capacity of their NiCad counterparts making them an excellent choice for power sapping equipment such as speedlights. NiMH batteries are available in common battery sizes such as AAA or AAA and …

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