Common terms in Photography

Common terms in Photography

• Photography – the word photography comes from two old Greek words “phos” meaning light and “graph” meaning to draw.  So photograph literally means to draw with light, or a drawing made with light.  So photography is the art of drawing with light.
• Aperture – the opening in the lens through which light passes to the film or digital sensor.  Measured in  f-stops.
• Bracketing – taking a series of images at different exposures or EV.
• Bulb – the “B” setting on your camera where the shutter remains opened as long as the button is pressed.
• DSLR – digital single lens reflex camera. Any digital camera with interchangeable lenses where the image is viewed using a mirror and prism, and the image is taken directly through that lens. What you see in your viewfinder is what the lens sees.
• EV – Exposure Value is a number that represents the various different combinations of aperture and shutter speed that can create the same exposure effect.
• Exposure compensation – modifying the shutter speed or aperture from the camera’s recommended exposure to create a certain effect (over or under exposing) – usually used in the Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority modes. Represented by a little +/- button on your camera. Your camera reads light bouncing off your subject and is designed to expose for medium grey. So when photographing a subject that is lighter or darker than 18% grey, you can use this setting to tell the camera the proper exposure (- or + respectfully)
• Exposure – the total amount of light reaching the digital sensor. It is controlled by setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
• F-stop – is a measure of the aperture opening in the lens defined by dividing the focal length of the lens by the aperture diameter. Sequence of f-stops are multiples of the square root of 2 (1.414…): 1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, etc. Even though these numbers are rather cryptic, just remember that each step is double the amount of light. Know that and it’s half the battle.
• ISO – stands for International Standards Organization and represents the sensitivity of your camera’s digital sensor to light. The lower the number (ISO 100), the less sensitive, the higher the number (ISO 3200) the more sensitive. A higher ISO allows you to shoot in low light conditions. 
• Shutter speed – the amount of time the shutter is opened during an exposure. The shutter speed controls motion. Use a fast speed (like 1/2000th of a second) to freeze motion, or a slow one (1/4 of a second or longer) to blur moving objects. Learn more about shutter speed and how to control it in this article.
• Zoom lens – any lens that has variable focal lengths such as a 24-70mm or 18-55mm. You zoom in or out by rotating the barrel of the lens.
• Prime or fixed lens – any lens that does not zoom and is a set focal length such as a nifty 50mm lens. 
• Remote trigger or digital cable release – a device that allows the camera to be fired without pressing the button or touching the camera. Helps eliminate movement of the camera during long exposures.
• Macro lens – one that focuses very close to the subject allowing for 1:1 reproduction size of the object or larger.
• “Normal” lens – generally a 50mm lens (on a full frame sensor camera) is considered to be a “normal” lens because it is closest to what the human eye sees.  If you have a cropped sensor that will be closer to 35mm.
• Telephoto lens – simply stated a telephoto lens is one that is longer than a normal lens, eg., 70-300mm. The dictionary says: a lens with a longer focal length than standard, giving a narrow field of view and a magnified image.  Super telephoto is usually 300mm and longer lenses.
• Wide angle lens – again simple answer is a lens that shows a wider field of view than a normal lens, which allows more to be fit into the frame. Depending on the degree of wide angle there may also be edge distortion (super wide angle), and if you get wide enough the image will become a circle (fish-eye).
• Tilt shift lens – a lens that attempts to recreate the movements available when using a view camera. Being able to tilt the front lens element allows for realignment of the plane of focus. Shift allows adjusting the placement of the subject within the frame without angling the camera, thus keep parallel lines from converging. This is a popular lens for architectural and landscape photographers, and is becoming more widely used by portrait photographers for creating a unique stylized look.
• Camera resolution – expressed in megapixels is the dimensions your camera’s sensor is capable of capturing. For example Canon’s new 6D has a resolution of 5472 x 3648 which equals 19,961,856, which they’ve rounded off to 20 megapixels. This is not the only factor in image quality, but generally the large the number, the larger prints you can produce from it without loss of quality.
• File format jpg versus RAW – most DSLR’s have the ability to shoot both formats. If you choose JPG, the camera will shoot a RAW file, process it using the picture style you’ve selected in your menu, save it as a JPG and discard the RAW version. If shot in RAW the resulting file will be larger, carry more information (but the same pixel resolution, see above) and require software to process. It gives you the photographer more control over the final look of your image.
• Full frame vs cropped sensor – I get asked about this in my classes all the time. A full frame sensor is roughly the size as the “old” 35mm frame of film. Lenses are made to create a circle of light just large enough to cover that area (covering power). In a cropped sensor camera the physical size of the sensor is smaller so it only captures a portion of the entire image the lens is projecting, effectively cropping part of the image out. Common crop factors are 1.5 or 1.6x so if you put on a 50mm lens it is more like a 75mm with a 1.5x crop factor.
• Camera modes – manual: full manual the user is setting the ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Shutter priority (Tv on a Canon or S on a Nikon) the user is selecting ISO and shutter speed, the camera is then choosing the aperture to make a correct exposure. Aperture priority (Av for Canon users, A for Nikon) the photographer selects the ISO and aperture and the camera picks the shutter speed. 

Lighting and Portrait Photography Terms

• Ambient light – also referred to as available light, is the light that is occurring in the scene without adding any flash or light modifiers. This could be daylight, or man made light such as tungsten or fluorescent bulbs.
• Main light or key light: is the main light source for a photograph. It could be the sun, a studio strobe, a flash, a reflector or something else. But it is the source of light that is producing the pattern of light on the subject with the most intensity.
• Fill light: is the light source that is secondary to the mail light. It is used to “fill” in the shadows to a desired degree. It can be produced by using a flash, a reflector, or a studio strobe.
• Lighting pattern: this is the way the light falls on the subjects face. A particular pattern of light and shadow that is created.
• Lighting ratio:  is a comparison between the intensity (brightness) of the main light and the fill light and thus the difference of the lit and shadow sides of the subject’s face.
• Incident light meter: is a handheld device separate from your camera that measures the amount of light falling on a subject (as opposed to the reflective reading your camera takes which is light bouncing off the subject back to the camera). The incident meter is not fooled by the brightness range of the subject, where as in camera reflective meters can be fooled.
• Speedlight (speedlite for Canon users): small portable flash which can attach to your camera’s hot shoe, or stand alone if activated remotely.
• Reflector – a device that is used to reflect light, generally back towards the subject. It can be a specialized factory made reflector (I recommend getting a 5-in-1 if you get one) or as simple as a piece of white cardboard. 
•  Light meter – a device that measures the amount of light in a scene. Your DSLR has one built in, it uses reflective readings (light bouncing off the subject coming back through the lens [TTL])
• Remote flash trigger – a device used to fire speedlights off camera. Pocket Wizard is a popular brand.
• Subtractive lighting – as the name implies it is the taking away of light to create a desired affect. Commonly it involves holding a reflector or opaque panel over the subject’s head to block light from above and open up deep eye shadows cause by overhead lighting. It can also mean holding a black reflector opposite your main light to create a deeper shadow, in essence reflecting black onto the subject instead of light.
• Hard light – harsh or undiffused light such as produced by bright sunlight, a small speedlight, or an on-camera flash. It produces harsh shadows with well defined edges (edge transfer), contrast, and texture (if used at an angle to the subject). Emphasizes texture, lines and wrinkles, and used to create a more dramatic type of portrait (character study).
• Soft light – diffused light such as from an overcast sky, north facing window with no direct light, or a large studio softbox. This type of light produces soft shadows with soft edges, lower contrast, and less texture. Generally preferred by most wedding and portrait photographers as it flatter the subject more.
• Edge transfer – where the light turns into the shadow, the edge transfer is how quickly it goes from dark to light. If using harsh light the edge transfer is very defined and sudden, almost a clear line. When using soft lighting the edge transfer will be much more subtle, almost imperceptible as it gradually changes from light to dark.
• Flash sync – simply put is the synchronization of the firing of an electronic flash and the shutter speed. You need to know what shutter speed your camera syncs at, otherwise if you shoot too fast a shutter speed you may get a partially illuminated image. For most cameras that is around 1/200th of a second, but it can be adjusted if you have a flash that can be set for fast speeds.

Slang and Photography Jargon

Here’s a few other terms that are a bit more advanced, and even completely made up jargon. Become familiar with them so you can walk among the pros with confidence!

• Fast glass – refers to a lens with a very large maximum aperture such as f1.8 or f1.2. “Fast” as in, it allows you to shoot at a fast shutter speed due to the large aperture.
• Chimping – slang term meaning looking at the back of the camera after every image. Spending too much time reviewing images on camera, not enough time shooting.
• Bokeh – often mispronounced “bow-kay” or “bow-kuh” it is correctly pronounced as “bo-ke” like the ke in kettle. It is used to described the out of focus blurred bits in the background when “fast glass” is used. Most often bokeh occurs where small light sources are in the background, far in the distance.
• Depth of Field (DOF or DoF)- the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in your scene that appear in focus.  It is controlled by many factors including the aperture, lens focal length, distance to subject, film or digital sensor size, and camera format.
• Circles of confusion – closely related to the above bokeh, the textbook definition is:  the largest blur spot that is indistinguishable from the point source that is being rendered. Objects outside the depth of field of an image that the human eye can determine as “out of focus”.
• Hyperfocal distance – often used by landscape photographers, it is the focus distance providing the the maximum amount of depth of field. Older prime lenses for film cameras usually had hyperfocal distance marks to aid in finding this magic sweet spot. With today’s lenses it is possible to calculate, just takes a bit more work and a hyperfocal distance calculator.
• Gobo – something used to block unwanted or stray light from falling onto the subject. Often a reflector (using the black side) can serve a dual purpose and act as a gobo as well.
• Scrim – a translucent device used to diffuse and soften the light, could be a reflector with a translucent panel or option. Also used on movie sets scrims can be made extremely large, several feet across, and clamped in place to create shade where these is direct sun without it.
• Shutter lag – every camera has a slight delay from the time you press the shutter button to the time it actually fires and opens. In DSLR’s it is minimal and almost unnoticeable. In smaller point and shoot cameras the delay is more pronounced such that it may actually cause a missed shot of a fast moving subject.
• Chromatic aberration – in terms of lens optics it is the failure of the lens to focus all colours (RGB) at the same point. It shows up as colour fringes in areas of the image where dark meet light (think edge of a building against the sky). It is more common in wide angle lenses, and those of inferior optics (kit lenses). It is correctable, to some degree, using Photoshop, Lightroom or software of your choice.
• Rear shutter curtain sync – by default most cameras are set to front curtain sync which means that if the flash fires, it does so at the beginning of the exposure time. By setting to rear shutter curtain sync it fires the flash at the end of the exposure time. The difference in some cases me be negligible, but in shooting a moving subject front sync will put any motion blur in front of the subject, where as rear sync will place the blur behind the subject. Neither is wrong, just preference.
• Camera shake – this is a blurry image which has resulted from an insufficiently fast enough shutter speed, while hand holding the camera. So how slow is too slow? Many teachers will say that 1/60th of a second is the rule of thumb. I tend to recommend 1 over the focal lens of your lens instead, as the longer the lens the more amplified any shake will become.
• Lens flare – occurs when the light source hits the lens directly, it can manifest as a hazy looking image or artifacts such as circles of light. Some photographers actually desire lens flare and position their camera to create it and use it as a compositional element.
• Kelvin – is the absolute measurement of colour temperature. On your camera under the White Balance settings you make see a “K” setting. This allows you to adjust the colour manually by degrees kelvin. The lower numbers represent warmer colours like orange (tungsten light) and the higher numbers are cooler (blues). Play with this scale to create different affects.
• ND filter – stands for neutral density filter which is a filter designed to go in front of the lens to block out some of the light entering the camera. Often used by landscape photographers to be able to get slow shutter speeds when photographing waterfalls and streams in full daylight.
• Panning – the act of using a slow shutter speed, and moving the camera in the same direction as a moving subject, during the exposure to create a blurred background.
• Stopping down – the act of closing down the aperture to a smaller opening.  EI going from f5.6 to f8.
• TTL and ETTL – stands for Through The Lens, refers to the metering system in regards to flash exposure. The flash emits light until it is turned off by the camera sensor. ETTL is evaluative through the lens metering and fires a “preflash” to evaluate and calculate for lost light then compensates and fires the main flash. It happens so fast you do not see two flashes.
• Photog – short for photographers, something pros often call each other
• Glass – lens, as is “what glass do you own?”
• Golden hour – also called “magic hour” is the hour right before sunset or right after sunrise. The sun is low on the horizon and it is an optimal time for photography.
• Spray and pray – shoot as many images as possible and that hope and pray you got something good. Not a philosophy I personally recommend.
• Blown out – having highlights that are off the chart on the right side of the histogram, having no detail in the white areas.  Eg: “the bride’s dress is blown out”
• Clipped – similar to blown out being off the histogram, but it can also apply to shadow or blacks areas of the image.
• Grip and grin – often used to describe a quick photoshoot at an event or set up with two people shaking hands. Most photographers have had to shoot these during their career.
• Selfie – a self portrait
• SOOC  – straight out of camera, no post processing or editing done
• Dust bunnies – dark spots that appear on the image, caused by bits of dust on the digital sensor
• Pixel peeper – someone that spends too much time looking at images at 100% size in Photoshop
• Nifty 50 – an old school prime 50mm lens, great to have
• ACR – Adobe Camera Raw
• Flash and drag – the method of using a slow shutter speed combined to flash to capture more of the ambient light in proportion to the flash
• Wide open – using your lens with the aperture at the widest setting (f1.8 for example)

Circle of Confusion

WHAT IS THE CIRCLE OF CONFUSION?

When the focus point and the focal plane do not meet, a point source of light (a round light source) appears slightly bigger and no longer appears to be in sharp focus. However, there is a certain range of tolerance in front of and behind a subject before it starts to appear out of focus to the human eye; that range is what is known as circle of confusion. In the below representative diagram the range is highlighted by the purple rectangle.

Plane of critical focus, focus areas and techniques, depth of field

If you look around you—the book in your hand, the chair across the room, the far wall—everything seems to be sharp. That is because your eyes refocus every time you look at an object at a different distance. But the sharpness you see when you glance at a scene is not always what you get in a photograph of that scene. To understand why not, you have to understand focus and depth of field.

Focus

Focus is only one of the factors affecting the apparent sharpness of your photographs, but it is a critical one because it determines which parts of the picture will be sharpest—called the plane of critical focus. You will have much more control over the final image if you understand how focus relates to the overall sharpness of a scene.

Imagine the part of the scene on which you focus as a flat plane (much like a pane of glass) superimposed from one side to the other of a scene, so that the plane is parallel to the back of the camera or the image sensor. Objects falling exactly on this imaginary plane will be in critical focus, the sharpest part of your picture. This plane of critical focus is a very shallow band and includes only those parts of the scene located at identical distances from the camera. As you point an autofocus camera at objects nearer or farther away in the scene, the plane of critical focus moves closer to or farther from the camera. As the plane moves, various objects at different distances from the camera come into or go out of critical focus.

Depth of Field

A lens can only bring objects at a single distance from the camera into critically sharp focus. But if you look at photographs, you can see a considerable area of the scene from near to far that appears sharp. Even though theoretically only one narrow plane is critically sharp, other parts of the scene in front of and behind the most sharply focused plane appear acceptably sharp. This area in which everything looks sharp is called depth of field. Objects within the depth of field become less and less sharp the farther they are from the plane of critical focus. Eventually they become so out of focus that they no longer appear sharp at all.

Often it doesn’t matter so much exactly what you are focused on. What does matter is whether or not all of the objects you want to be sharp are within the depth of field so they appear sharp. If you want a large part of the scene to be sharp, you can increase the depth of field. You can decrease it if you want less of the scene sharp. In some scenes, you can significantly increase or decrease the depth of field simply by shifting the point on which you are focused or by changing the aperture setting.

The near and far limits of depth of field are two planes (B and C), parallel to the plane of critical focus (A). Actually, they are usually not visible as exactly defined boundaries. Nor can you usually find the plane of critical focus by looking at a picture. Instead, sharp areas imperceptibly merge into unsharp ones. Notice that in the diagram the depth of field is not evenly divided. At normal shooting distances, about one-third of the depth of field is in front of the plane of critical focus (toward the camera), and two-thirds is behind it (away from the camera). When the camera is focused very close to an object, the depth of field becomes more evenly divided.

Plane of Critical FocusThe plane of critical focus in your image will be the area that falls within the focus area in the center of the viewfinder when you press the shutter-release button halfway down.

TipTo control depth of field, switch to aperture preferred mode and select a small aperture for great depth of field or a large aperture for shallow depth of field.

Focus Settings

Most digital cameras have an autofocus system that automatically adjusts the focus to make the subject in the center of the viewfinder appear critically sharp. However, some cameras provide other ways to focus and this is a good thing. Autofocus often has trouble focusing in scenes with little contrast, when the object in the focus point is brighter than the rest of the scene, when the subject is poorly illuminated, when both near and distant objects fall within the focus point, or when the subject is moving quickly. If the camera can’t focus, some cameras beep or blink a lamp. If this happens, use focus lock to focus on a subject at the same distance. Some cameras also let you switch to manual focus.

Using focus lock

To change the position of the plane of critical focus, you can use a procedure called focus lock. Most digital cameras have a two-stage shutter-release button. When you press it down halfway, it sets focus, exposure and white balance. Some cameras beep and illuminate a lamp when these readings are locked in. If you don’t release the shutter-release button you can then point the camera anywhere else in the scene and the settings remain unchanged. This lets you set the focus at any distance from the camera to control both focus and depth of field.

TipTo control depth of field, switch to aperture preferred mode and select a small aperture for great depth of field or a large aperture for shallow depth of field.

How To: Using Focus Lock In record mode, point the camera so the item you want to lock on is in the focus area in the center of the viewfinder. Press the shutter-release button down halfway and hold it there to lock in the focus.  Without releasing the shutter-release button, recompose the scene and press the shutter-release button the rest of the way to take the picture.

A small aperture gave enough depth of field to keep both foreground and background figures sharp.

Understanding Focus - Photography

FOCUS
What is focus? In photography, it’s practically married to sharpness. An image that is completely sharp is said to be in-focus. An image that’s completely blurry is said to be unfocused. The same metaphor applies to your mind. When you concentrate, your mind is sharp. You are focused. When you’re confused, you lack focus. As you are about to learn, you can use focus to direct your viewer’s attention to the most important parts of a scene. Here’s how.

Before we get to the tips themselves, I want to discuss the mechanics of focus itself. In order for a camera to create a focused image, it takes light and runs it through a lens, concentrating the rays on the image sensor inside. The size of the hole the light travels through (the aperture) determines how focused those rays are once they hit the sensor. Smaller holes do a better job of focusing light than larger holes.

                                  This photo uses close focus to draw emphasis to the soccer ball.

In terms of actual camera settings, larger f-numbers correspond to smaller apertures. At F22, the depth of field (or focus range) is much larger than at F4. You can use depth of field to emphasize certain parts of an image. That’s one reason why F4 is such a good aperture for taking portraits. You can focus on the eyes alone while the background gets completely blurred out. The small depth of field makes your friend’s face stand out from the background.

With that explained, here's how to use focus to improve your images:

Don’t always put everything in focus

There are a lot of situations where you don’t really want the entire image to be in focus. Backgrounds tend to get in the way, and they will distract your viewer from the point you are trying to make. Portraits, as we have just discussed, look a lot better when the background is somewhat out of focus. The effect is akin to bringing your friend into the studio and placing him or her in front of a solid colored background.

I should also mention that it’s simply harder to draw attention to things that don’t stand out on their own. When we focus our eyes, we do something similar. You might not notice it, but everything else in your peripheral vision appears a little more hazy. Most of the time, only one part of your images should be truly sharp. Let the rest get a little fuzzy so the sharp part stands out.

Understand visual depth

What is depth? It’s a measure of the three dimensionality of things. Imagine holding an apple out in front of your face. The apple is fairly three dimensional. It recesses into the background. It isn’t as three dimensional as your entire arm sticking out in front of you, but it is has a sense of depth.

Contrast the apple with a wall or a flat piece of paper being held out in front of you. Neither have that much visual depth at all.

As it turns out, this is pretty important in photography. There are some photographic situations where it really doesn’t matter how large your depth of field is. You don’t need a huge depth of field to focus on a person standing in front of a mural, for example. Any aperture between F8 and F11 will do.

 You can get away with using any aperture between F8 and F11

when your subject is standing in front of wall.
Depth doesn’t matter as much.

Just think of it this way. The more visual depth you have, the more important focus becomes. Landscapes have an incredible amount of visual depth, all the way from the foreground to the background. It’s important to capitalize on that depth by making the image as sharp as possible. You’ll want to use a smaller aperture to get the largest possible depth of field.

Sensitivity and Noise in Photographs

Digital noise in photos taken with digital cameras is random pixels scattered all over the photo. It is a similar effect as “grain” in film photography and it degrades the photo quality.

Digital noise usually occurs when you take low light photos (such as night photos or indoor dark scenes) or you use very slow shutter speeds or very high sensitivity modes.

When taking pictures with a digital camera an electronic sensor (also known as a CCD) built from many tiny pixels is used to measure the light for each pixel. The result is a matrix of pixels that represent the photo.

As with any other electronic sensor the CCD is not perfect and includes some noise (also know as white noise to hint on its randomness attribute). In most lighting the light is significantly stronger than the noise. However in extreme scenes where the light is very low or when a high amplification is needed noise levels can become significant and result in pixels in the photos that include more noise data than real photo light data. Those pixels usually appear as random dots or stains on the photo (for example white dots scattered randomly on the photo).

Understanding digital noise in various scenes:

low light (night photos or dark scenes): when the scene is dark the amount of light measured by each pixel of the CCD is low. When the light intensity is very low it can become too close to the level of noise naturally found in the CCD. In such cases some pixels can appear as noise because the noise level measured for them is significantly close or higher than the actual light intensity.

slow shutter speeds: when the shutter is kept open for a long time more noise will be introduced to the photo. A slow shutter speed translates to the CCD integrating more light per pixel. The effect can be easily understood as the CCD “accumulating” light in each pixel and measuring the total light over the shutter period of time. However at the same time the CCD is also “accumulating” noise. For that reason in slow shutter speed photos some pixels will appear as noise because for these pixels the amount of noise integrated is significantly close to or higher than the actual light measured.

high sensitivity modes: high sensitivity in digital photography is implemented by mechanisms that result in amplification. The CCD amplifies the measurements it takes. However there is no way to just amplify the actual photo light that falls on the CCD pixels instead the noise and the actual light are both amplified. The result is that the CCD becomes sensitive not only to light but also to its own noise. When too much amplification is applied some pixels will appear as noise.

While it is impossible to completely prevent digital noise there are a few options that allow you to significantly decrease it. When taking photos in low light scenarios such as night photos there are two main parameters to play with: sensitivity and shutter speed. Raising sensitivity creates more internal noise in the CCD while slowing down the shutter allows for more noise to integrate on the CCD. The amount of noise generated by both parameters is different. It is recommended that you set your camera to manual mode and play with a few different sensitivity/shutter speed pairs to find out the one that generates the least noise.

Some cameras include a built-in feature called “noise reduction”. Noise reduction is implemented by sophisticated software that can identify the noise pixels and remove them. For example the software can identify the noise pixels based on their randomness and usually extreme intensity gap between them and their neighboring pixels. Removing the noise can be implemented by interpolating a replacement pixel value based on its neighboring pixels.

If you do not have a built-in noise reduction feature or it does not work properly you can use a PC based software that removes digital noise. Many photo processing software include a combination of automatic and manual digital noise removal. Some software packages can also use a few photos of the same object to “average” them and thus remove the noise (relying on the fact that digital noise is random and the noise pixels will be different in each photo taken).

To conclude digital noise should be understood by any amateur or professional photographer. However for most photographers digital noise is not a practical problem even in low light scenarios usually digital noise is minimal and can be significantly reduced by simply turning on your camera’s noise reduction feature. For professional photographers who shoot in more extreme conditions digital noise can present a real problem and can be dealt with using a combination of optimizing the camera settings and removing noise with professional software.

Image size and aspect ratio

Aspect ratio is the ratio of the width to the height of an image or screen.

Common Image sizes:

Widescreen (16:9)

Square (1:1)

Classic (4:3)

Cinematic (21:9)

What aspect ratio should I choose?

To choose the right aspect ratio for your project, you need to think about:

·  the way you intend to use your final photo, and 

·  the aspect ratios of the photos you plan to import and edit. 

Widescreen 16:9 is the aspect ratio that is suitable in most situations. This size displays well on the screens of most smartphones, laptops and tablet devices, and it's also the ratio we watch TV shows in. Most new smartphones also automatically record photos in widescreen.

However, if you're creating a photo for a platform that prefers square content, such as Instagram, you might want to choose Square 1:1.

If all the photos you plan to work with were recorded in an older 4:3 ratio, you might want to choose Classic 4:3 to avoid having to crop them (or seeing black bars appearing at their edges).

if you plan to play the final photo on an ultra-wide screen or cinematic display, or have recorded your photos in this format, you might want to choose Cinematic 21:9.

Image Sensors in Digital Cameras

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DIGITAL CAMERA IMAGE SENSORS

Two main types of sensors are used in digital cameras today: CCD (charge-coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) imagers. Although each type of sensor uses different technology to capture images, these sensors have no inherent quality difference.

Both CCD and CMOS imagers use metal-oxide semiconductors, and they have about the same degree of sensitivity to light.

The main difference is in what each type sensor does with the light after capturing it:

·         CCD sensor: Captures photons as electrical charges in each photosite (a light-sensitive area that represents a pixel). After exposure, the charges are swept off the chip to an amplifier located in one corner of the sensor. External circuitry converts the analog signal to digital form and handles storing it on your memory card.

·         CMOS sensor: Includes solid-state circuitry at each and every photosite, and can manipulate the data for each pixel right in the sensor. The CMOS sensor can respond to lighting conditions in ways that a CCD can’t. Every photosite can be accessed individually.