Photo Terms by Harriet

Exposure value: the amount of light for an exposure. One number. It is used to calculate the combination of shutter speed and aperture at a given ISO speed of the sensor

Light Meter: measures how much light is coming into the camera. Negative numbers make the picture darker and positive make it lighter. Helpful because it allows you to see when you should change your ISO, shutter speed, or aperture

Depth of Field: the distance between the viewer and the subject. Telephoto lenses have smaller depth of field and wide angle lenses have a larger depth of field. A small depth of field has a sharp subject while the background becomes more blurry with the distance- good for portraits. A wider depth of field focuses on everything.

ISO: the sensor’s sensitivity to light. A low ISO is less sensitive to light so it is good to use in bright settings. Its better to use a higher ISO in dark settings.

Kelvin: the Kelvin scale measures visible light by temperature. The flash is -5500 degrees. The color changes according to the different temperature. With a higher temperature, the image appears more blue. Reds, blues and yellows can all be adjusted to make the light appear normal.

White Balance: natural light is different from artificial light. Cameras don’t adjust naturally to these changes in light- you can adjust the white balance to make the image appear more natural.

Shutter Speed: determines how long the shutter will be open, controlling how much light is being let in. faster shutter speed works better to capture subjects in motion.

Diaphragm: controls the amount of light that enters the camera through the lens. The diaphragm shuts out all other light so it doesn’t get overexposed. Should be smaller in brighter light (larger aperture-to take in less light) and larger in darker settings (smaller aperture-to take in more light).