Photography Terms and Definitions for Digital Photography

Digital photography has grown and expanded in the last few years. With digital photography came a whole new vocabulary related to digital cameras and their operation. The terms and definitions below are the most basic terms for a digital photographer to understand.

Camera and Photographic Equipment Terms

Digital camera: a camera that captures the photograph using an electronic imaging sensor to record data in pixels on a memory card instead of on traditional film.

Related Article: Guide to Choosing a Digital Camera

Digital zoom: a zoom lens that moves closer to the subject by cropping the image within the LCD screen. The drawback to a digital zoom is the loss of quality. A digital zoom is essentially no different than cropping and editing in a digital photography software program.

Optical zoom: a zoom lens that moves your view closer to the subject without losing photographic quality. It is the traditional zoom lens.

Related Article: Optical vs. Digital Zoom

Flash card: a memory card designed for use in your camera that uses flash memory. There are several types of flash cards.

Flash memory: a memory chip that retains the data after being shut off.

Image resolution: the number of pixels in a digital photograph.

Lag time: the time that elapses between when the shutter release is pressed and the camera takes the photograph. Most digital camera models except digital SLRs experience shutter lag.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen: a viewing window that allows previewing or reviewing of images and allows camera settings to be changed.

Memory card: small card inserted into the camera, used to store images. Images are downloaded from the card, generally to a computer, and the card can then be reused.

Memory stick: a small memory card for storing photographs using flash memory.

ISO Speed: Similar to the traditional film camera rating system, ISO speed is determined by the camera's imaging sensor. As in traditional film cameras, the higher ISO, the lower the image quality.

Digital Images

Aspect ratio: the width divided by the height of an image.

Byte: a unit of measure equal to 8 bits of digital information.

Dots per inch (DPI): a measurement of the resolution of a digital photograph. The higher the number the greater the resolution.

Dots per inch (dpi): a measure of the number of pixels per inch.

Histogram: a graph that shows the range of tones from dark to light in a photograph.

Image pixels: the image itself is composed of pixels in a series of rows and columns. The size of each pixel depends on the size the image is displayed. A smaller image size will have larger pixels and a larger image size will have smaller pixels.

JPEG: the most prevalent standard for compressing image data.

Megapixel: a measurement equal to one million pixels.

Related Article: What are Megapixels?

Pixel: the single point of a digital image that makes up a photograph. Digital photographs contain thousands or millions of pixels.

RAW image format: the digital information coming directly off the camera sensor with no in-camera processing.

Thumbnail: A small version of a photograph.

Digital Image Storage

Compact disc (CD): a read-only storage for digital media.

CD burning: the process of saving your digital file to a CD.

Compression: the process of reducing the size of a digital photograph to speed processing and transmission time and reducing file size.

Download: the process of moving computer data from one location to another such as transferring photographs from a memory card to the computer.

File: a computer document.

Hard drive: a storage device that holds the data to be accessed by the computer.

By understanding the terms used in digital photography, you will be able to use your camera more effectively.