O Archives - Shutter Muse

OOF

What Does OOF Mean In Photography? OOF or Oof stands for Out Of Focus and it means that the area of the image is not within the depth of field for your given combination of aperture, focal length and distance from subject. Sharp, fine details will be lost and your image will look ‘soft’ or blurry, at least in part. If your subject is OOF then you’ve got a problem! But OOF can also be used to describe the background or foreground of an image as well. For example, someone might say “the image has a pleasingly OOF background”, meaning …

Opacity

What Does Opacity Mean When Talking About Photography? Opacity is the measure of an objects impenetrability to electromagnetic radiation. When talking about photography the term is used to describes exactly how much an object blocks light from passing through it. An object that completely blocks light is called opaque, no light is able to pass through it. The opposite of opaque is transparent. Many opaque objects will reflect light which can be problematic when taking photos. Knowing the opacity of objects is also very important when designing lenses; lens elements despite very low opacity values will still block small amounts …

Open Up

What Does Open up Mean When Talking About Taking Photographs? When taking photographs to ‘open up’ or ‘opening up’ refers to the practice of allowing more light to be recorded by a photographic medium for example a camera film or sensor. Opening up can be done in one of two ways; By selecting a larger aperture setting on a lens, or setting a longer exposure time on a camera. Both methods allow more light to be captured by the film or image sensor but have different creative effects. The challenge of of capturing a good photograph is knowing which method …

Optical Resolution

What Does Optical Resolution Mean When Talking About Photography and Cameras? When talking about cameras and photography the term ‘optical resolution’ describes the total resolution that a digital camera, or optical device such as a scanner is able to capture. The optical resolution is expressed in megapixels or MP, with each megapixel being a total of one million pixels. A camera with an optical resolution of 24.2MP therefore is able to record an image which contains a total of 24200000 pixels. Shot in an image ratio of 3:2 a 24.2MP image would have a resolution of 6016 x 4016 and …

Optical Storage

What Is Optical Storage and how Is it Used in Photography? Optical storage is a storage medium where information is stored on a material that is able to be read optically. Information is stored by marking the optically readable material, and can then be read by shining a laser onto the previously recorded areas. Measurement of whether the light is reflected of absorbed allows a digital readout to be produced which can then be converted back into the original data. Examples of optical storage are CDs and DVDs which you might use to store digital images. Optical storage formats are …

Optical Viewfinder

What Is an Optical Viewfinder and How Is It Used When Taking Photographs? When talking about cameras and photography the term ‘optical viewfinder’ (or OVF) refers to a component of a camera which a photographer looks through to view the scene in front of the camera. In a rangefinder the optical viewfinder uses its own lens to display an offset image of the scene being viewed, in an SLR type camera a mirror and system of prisms are used to allow the shooter to see the scene as it appears through the lens of the camera. An optical viewfinder is …

Optical Zoom

What does Optical Zoom mean when talking about photography? When talking about photography the term ‘optical zoom’ refers to a specific type of lens which allows a photographer to alter the magnification ratio by changing the distance between groups of optical elements within the lens. The zoom ratio of an optical zoom lens is often controlled by rotating the front portion of the lens, this manipulates a mechanism within the lens which moves elements within the lens barrel. On smaller cameras the zoom ratio may be controlled electronically using a motor. Importantly, the focus settings of a lens are not …

ORF

What Is and ORF File and How Is It Used in Photography and Image Editing? The acronym ORF stands for ‘Olympus RAW file’ and is Olympus’ proprietary version of a RAW photographic file. As such an ORF file contains only uncompressed or lossless photographic data with no editing. ORF files are what are captured on a compatible Olympus camera when a photographer wants to capture the highest levels of photographic information for manipulation in post-processing. ORF files are compatible with Olympus’ own image editing software and major editing suites such as Photoshop using the ORF plug-in. Due to the amount …

Orientation Sensor

What Is an Orientation Sensor and How Is Is Used in a Camera? When talking about modern cameras an ‘orientation sensor’ is a sensor within a camera which can detect when a photographer switches the camera from a landscape to a portrait orientation. An orientation sensor us usually a type of basic accelerometer which can only detect major changes in orientation. They allow camera display information to be rotated to remain readable by the shooter regardless of whether they are holding the camera vertically of horizontally. Orientation sensors are also used during image playback to allow the user to switch …

Overexposure

What Does Overexposure Mean When Talking About Photography? When talking about photography the term ‘overexposure’ describes what happens when a photographic medium is exposed to incoming light for too long. The resulting image will be ‘overexposed’ and appear extremely bright with highlights appearing ‘blown’ and detail often being completely lost amongst patches of pure white. Overexposure is problematic in situations where a scene contains detail in both light and dark areas; Exposing the image to capture detail in shadows will often result in overexposed light areas, often exposing for both light and dark is impossible without using some form of …