Basics
This standard composition technique involves dividing your frame into a 3x3 grid and placing your subject along the lines or intersections.
What is the Rule of Thirds?
This term describes the area of an image that appears sharp and in focus, which can be described as "shallow" or "deep."
What is depth of field?
On most smartphones, you pinch the screen to use this type of zoom, which merely crops and enlarges the pixels rather than physically moving glass elements.
What is digital zoom?
This popular modern camera type lacks a physical internal mirror, allowing it to be lighter and display a live digital preview in the viewfinder.
What is a mirrorless camera?
This historic American brand popularized consumer photography with its cheap film cameras and iconic yellow-and-black branding.
Who/What is Kodak?
This essential setting determines how long your camera sensor is exposed to light; faster speeds can freeze action.
What is shutter speed?
For triple the points: Borrowed from a Japanese word meaning "blur," this term refers to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus background highlights in a photo.
What is bokeh?
Popularized by smartphones, this camera mode artificially blurs the background to make a subject pop, mimicking a shallow depth of field.
What is Portrait Mode?
This acronym represents traditional digital cameras that use a internal mirror mechanism to reflect light up into an optical viewfinder.
What is a DSLR?
This Japanese giant is famous for its massive "EF" and modern "RF" lens mounts, alongside its famous EOS camera lineup.
Who/What is Canon?
Measured in f-stops, this is the physical opening inside a lens that regulates how much light enters the camera.
What is the aperture?
This uncompressed, untouched file format saves all the data captured by your camera sensor, requiring post-processing before sharing.
What is a RAW file?
This 3-letter feature captures multiple images at different exposures instantly and blends them to keep both bright skies and dark shadows in detail.
What is HDR (High Dynamic Range)?
Often used by travelers, this casual, compact camera type gets its name because it has a fixed lens and requires no advanced manual setup before shooting.
What is a point-and-shoot camera?
This brand is legendary for its premium, hand-built German cameras and its iconic red dot logo.
Who/What is Leica?
This setting adjusts how sensitive your sensor or film is to light, though raising it too high creates unwanted digital noise or grain.
What is ISO?
This camera setting tells your camera how to interpret light so that whites actually look white under different light sources like shade or indoor bulbs.
What is white balance?
Smartphones achieve incredible night photos not just through hardware, but through this branch of photography that relies on software algorithms and AI.
What is computational photography?
This large sensor size, standard in professional cameras, matches the exact dimensions of a traditional piece of 35mm film.
What is a full-frame sensor?
This company completely disrupted the professional mirrorless market with its popular "Alpha" (or "α") series of full-frame cameras.
Who/What is Sony?
Together, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO make up this foundational three-sided concept of photography.
What is the Exposure Triangle?
This visual tool is a small pixel graph on your screen that shows the exact tonal distribution of an image from absolute blacks to pure whites
What is a histogram?
Apple phone cameras allow advanced users to shoot in this proprietary, uncompressed file format to retain maximum editing control over colors and highlights.
What is Apple ProRAW?
This specific style of historic or high-end camera uses a dual-window system to let the photographer focus manually by aligning two overlapping images.
What is a rangefinder?
Known for medium-format cameras, this Swedish brand gained eternal fame when its modified cameras were used to photograph the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Who/What is Hasselblad?