1. Unit 57: Photography and Photographic Practice Terminology
P1, P2, M1, M2
Photographic Terminology
Ashleigh Darlington
2. Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is how long the shutter on the camera lens stays open for as this will
change the amount of light and exposure that will show up on the image that has been
taken this is depending on the length of time that the shutter has been open for.
4. Iso
This is how sensitive a film is to light depending on what the ISO number is, a
way to explain this is that the lower the number the lower the sensitivity and
the finer the grain appears in the shots you are taking.
6. Aperture & Depth of Field
The way a subject looks in a photograph can sometimes look different from
how it looked to you as you took the picture this is because when you look at a
scene everything in it looks more or less equally sharp but sometimes in the
finished shot only part of the subject appears sharp is called the depth-of-
field, and it extends in front of and behind the point that you actually focused
on.
7. Aperture & Depth of Field
Narrow Depth of Field Wide Depth of Field
8. Manual Exposure
When the camera is in
manual mode the
photographer adjusts the
lens aperture and/or the
shutter speed to achieve
the exposure that they
want.
9. Automatic Exposure
Exposure is the amount of
light you allow to hit either
an object or an area in the
photograph you are taking.
A camera in Automatic
Exposure automatically
calculates and adjusts the
exposure settings to match
the subjects mid tone to the
mid tone of the object you
are taking a picture of.
10. Colour Balance
Colour is the global adjustment of
the intensities of colours, an
important goal of this adjustment is
to render specific colours usually
neutral colours. The general method
is sometimes called gray balance,
neutral balance or white balance.
The right half shows the photo adjusted to
make a gray surface neutral in the same
light.
11. White Balance
This is the process where you
remove any unrealistic colours from
the picture, this is to ensure that
objects that appear for example
white in person are rendered so that
they still appear just as white in your
picture.
13. Rule of thirds
This applies to the process of
composing visual images it is not
only used in photographs it can also
be used in other things such as
paintings and designs. The guideline
says that an image should be
imagined as being divided into nine
equal parts by two equally spaced
horizontal or vertical lines.
14. Examples of Rule of thirds
The key interest points don’t always
fall exactly on the intersections laid
out in the grid although that is a rule
it can be broken.
15. Analogous colours
These are colours that are next to
each other on the colour wheel,
these colours tend to look good
together because they are closely
related, these are colours like orange
and yellow.
16. Complementary Colours
These are pairs of colours that are
classed as being opposite from each
other. The exact of hue
“complementary” to a given hue
depends on the model in question
for example having different
compliments for different colours.
17. Macro
This is usually used for when you
want to take pictures of very small
objects as it is extreme close up
photography so that the subject that
has been photographed appears
greater in the photograph than it is
in real life.
