Photography
101 flashcards by MentisLibrary
The exposure triangle, composition rules, lens choices, and lighting patterns, plus the settings that work for sports, night skies, portraits, and everything in between. Get off auto for good.
- What are the three sides of the exposure triangle?
- Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
- What does aperture control besides brightness?
- Depth of field, the range of distance that appears acceptably sharp.
- Why does a smaller f-number mean a bigger opening?
- The f-number is a ratio of focal length to aperture diameter, so a larger denominator means a smaller opening.
- What does shutter speed control besides brightness?
- How motion is rendered, from frozen to blurred.
- What does ISO control?
- How strongly the sensor signal is amplified, which brightens the image at the cost of increased noise.
- What is a stop in photography?
- A doubling or halving of the light reaching the sensor.
- What is the standard full stop aperture sequence?
- f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.
- How does one stop change shutter speed?
- It doubles or halves the duration, for example 1/125s to 1/250s.
- How does one stop change ISO?
- It doubles or halves the ISO number, for example ISO 400 to ISO 800.
- What is reciprocity in exposure?
- The principle that equal and opposite changes in two exposure controls leave overall brightness unchanged.
- What is depth of field?
- The zone in front of and behind the focus point that looks acceptably sharp.
- How does subject distance affect depth of field?
- The closer you focus, the shallower the depth of field becomes.
- How does focal length affect depth of field?
- Longer focal lengths produce shallower apparent depth of field at the same aperture and framing distance.
- What is hyperfocal distance?
- The focus distance at which everything from half that distance to infinity appears acceptably sharp.
- What is bokeh?
- The aesthetic quality of the out of focus areas of an image, not simply the amount of blur.
- What is the circle of confusion?
- The largest blur spot that still reads as a point of sharp detail at a given viewing size.
- What is single shot autofocus used for?
- Locking focus once on a stationary subject and holding it while the shutter button is half pressed.
- What is continuous autofocus used for?
- Continuously refocusing on a subject that is moving toward or away from the camera.
- What is tracking autofocus?
- A mode where the camera follows a chosen subject across the frame, moving the active focus area to stay on it.
- What is back button focus?
- Assigning autofocus to a rear button so the shutter release only fires the shutter.
- What is a focus point?
- A selectable area of the frame the camera uses to determine focus.
- What is focus peaking?
- A display aid that highlights the edges of in focus areas with a colored overlay while focusing manually.
- What does evaluative or matrix metering do?
- It analyzes brightness across the whole frame and computes an exposure balanced for the overall scene.
- What does spot metering do?
- It meters only a small area of the frame, typically one to five percent, usually at the center or the active focus point.
- What does center weighted metering do?
- It measures the whole frame but gives the greatest weight to the central area.
- What is exposure compensation?
- A control that shifts the camera's metered exposure brighter or darker by a set number of stops.
- What does a histogram show?
- The distribution of tones in the image, from pure black on the left to pure white on the right.
- What is clipping in a digital image?
- Tonal information lost because pixels hit pure black or pure white and record no detail.
- What is dynamic range?
- The range between the darkest and brightest tones a sensor can record with usable detail, measured in stops.
- What does expose to the right mean?
- Pushing exposure as bright as possible without clipping highlights, to capture more signal and less noise.