M Archives - Page 2 of 3

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 …

Metering

What Is Metering and How Is It Used in Cameras? When talking about cameras and taking photographs ‘metering’ describes the process a camera uses to automatically determine the correct exposure settings for a capturing a photograph. Incoming light is read or ‘metered’ by the camera’s onboard software and exposure settings are calculated based on the read values. A camera can usually be set to one of three of metering methods; Matrix Metering, Spot metering and Center-weighted metering. Each will produce a different exposure so selecting the appropriate metering method for a given scene is extremely important when considering how you want …

MF

What Does MF Mean On A Camera? MF is an abbreviation for manual focus. When a camera or lens has MF written on the side of it, it’s usually indicating the position of a switch that will change the camera or lens from manual focus mode to autofocus mode. In manual focus mode, you must rotate the focus ring on the lens to achieve correct focus on your subject. In autofocus mode, the camera will attempt to focus on the correct subject for you. Secondary meaning: Medium Format (MF) – This refers to film or digital cameras where the image …

MFD

What Does MFD Stand for in Photography and What Does It Mean? MFD stands for ‘Minimum Focusing Distance’. It is the minimum distance between a camera sensor or film, and image subject, at which a lens is able to focus on the image subject. MFD can be measured in meters or inches and is often marked on a lenses barrel. Knowledge of the MFD of a lens allows a photographer to make the right creative choices when positioning himself in relation to close subjects ensuring the required image sharpness is achieved. In situations where capturing the image you want requires …

Mic (microphone)

What Is a Mic and How Is It Used When Capturing Digital Video? A Mic, or Microphone is a device designed to capture and convert sound into a digital signal so that it can be recorded to a storage medium. A digital camera which is able to record audio must have built-in mic in order to do so, built-in mics are generally low quality but allow the simultaneous recording of audio and video without the need for external equipment. Many higher end cameras now have a dedicated mic input port which allows the for use of higher quality, external audio …

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 …

Midtone

What Does Midtone Mean When Talking About Photographs? When talking about photographs and photography there are three areas of ‘tone’ within the total range of color in an image, The Highlights contain the brightest tones, the Shadows contain the darkest, and the midtones contain everything in between. In general terms the midtones usually account for the middle 50% of the total tonal depth of an image (25%-75%), with highlights and shadows accounting for the 25% each each end of the tonal range. Altering the balance between the three tonal areas of an image can have a dramatic impact on the overall …

Minimum Aperture

What Does Minimum Aperture Mean When Talking About Cameras and Lenses? The term ‘minimum aperture’ refers to the smallest possible hole that can be formed by the aperture blades in a photographic lens. Generally at it’s minimum aperture a lens will produce extremely sharp images with a wide depth of field, but will allow a much reduced amount of light to strike the photographic medium. A lens with an minimum aperture of f/64 for example would produce extremely sharp images with a very wide depth of field. The minimum aperture of a lens is usually listed in the lens’ specifications …

Mix-Minus

A mix-minus is a term that is often used in a podcast or live video production. It refers to a specifically mixed audio signal that is sent back to a remote guest or caller on the podcast or live stream. The mix-minus allows them to listen to any other hosts or guests, without hearing themselves as a delayed echo. While the audio mix for the show must contain all the audio tracks from all hosts and remote guests, the mix-minus that gets sent back to the remote guest does not contain their own incoming audio signal. It is essentially the …

Monopod

What Is A Monopod? A monopod is a camera support that has just one single leg. They are collapsible, and usually come in different heights with different numbers of collapsible sections. Most popular are 3-section or 4-section monopods, but you can sometimes find ones with even more. The more sections a monopod has, the smaller its full collapsed length is, but this is at the expense of some rigidity as the sections get thinner and thinner. Monopods are an excellent way to support a camera when it isn’t practical to carry a tripod. They are often used by people using …