Topic: Acronyms

Puzzled by strange photography acronyms or abbreviations? You’ve come to the right place!

The complete Shutter Muse Photography Glossary lists and explains the most commonly used terms in photography and you can find that glossary right here. This is the best place for beginner photographers to start to familiarize themselves with the photography lingo while they are exploring tutorials, reading books and learning photography software. A lot of the time, we can also give you a link to a more in-depth article on the topic if you’d really like to sink your teeth into it!

This page you are on right now only lists the photography acronyms and abbreviations from within the full glossary because sometimes that’s all people are looking for.

If you’ve seen something missing that you’d like us to explain, please send us a note via the suggestion form and again, you can find the full glossary here.

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 capture …

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 …

MP-E

What Is An MP-E Lens? There is but one MP-E lens in Canon’s lineup at the time of writing this glossary, and that is the MP-E 65mm f/2.8. It is unique in that it is the lens highest magnification DSLR lens on the planet, reaching a staggering 5x, compared to a standard 1x on a regular macro lens. In other words, objects can be displayed on the sensor at 5 times their relative size. It makes it a perfect lens for insect photography and has the ability to turn everyday objects into extremely interesting photo subjects. Only MP-E lens: Canon 65mm f/2.8 …

MTF Chart

What Is An MTF Chart? MTF stands for Modulation Transfer Function and an MTF chart is a chart that plots the optical performance of a lens across the the image, from the centre to the corner. Various lines on the chart depict the lens’ performance in both contrast and resolution, and it’s the combination of these two things that give us what we might call perceived sharpness. A lens only looks sharp when there is a good balance of both contrast AND resolution, even though most people don’t typically think so much about the contrast side of things. The x-axis of …

ND

What Does ND Stand for in Photography? ND stands for neutral density and is used to describe a type of photographic filter that diminishes the amount of light transmission through a lens. A neutral density filter is designed to be as close to color-neutral as possible, so the only effect that it should have is to cut down the amount of light that is hitting your camera’s sensor or film. You might want to do this in order be able to use a wider aperture on a sunny day, to maintain a shallow depth of field, or you might do …

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 …

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 …

NTSC

What Is NTSC and How Does It Relate to Photography and Video? NTSC is an analogue video standard widely used in the Americas and Japan before the coming of the digital television era. Named after the ‘National Television System Committee’ NTSC dates back to 1941 when the first black and white NTSC system was implemented, NTSC color followed in 1953. The NTSC standard features a refresh rate of 30 frames per second, with each frame being composed of two fields consisting of 262.5 scan lines. NTSC was extremely popular until the late 1990’s when it began to be superseded by …

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 the area behind …

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 …