Camera Parts + Functions
This part of the camera opens and closes to control how long light hits the sensor.
What is the shutter?
This shot shows a subject’s head and shoulders, often used for interviews or portraits.
What is a close-up?
This rule suggests dividing your frame into nine equal parts with two horizontal and two vertical lines and placing your subject along the lines or intersections.
What is the rule of thirds?
This type of photography captures people, usually focusing on their face or expression.
What is portrait photography?
This setting controls how long light hits the camera sensor, affecting motion blur in your photos.
What is shutter speed?
You look through this to see exactly what your camera will capture before taking a photo.
What is the viewfinder?
This type of shot is taken from above the subject, making them look smaller or vulnerable.
What is a high-angle shot?
Keeping elements in the foreground, middle ground, and background helps create this type of photo effect, giving a sense of depth.
What is depth / perspective?
This genre captures wildlife, animals, and natural behavior in their environment.
What is wildlife photography?
This word describes the blurry background effect that isolates your subject from its surroundings.
What is bokeh?
This camera part controls how much light enters the lens by adjusting the size of an opening, similar to the human pupil.
What is the aperture?
This shot frames the subject from the waist up, commonly used in conversations.
What is a medium shot?
This principle says that too many distracting elements in a photo can take attention away from the main subject.
What is simplicity / minimalism?
Photographers in this genre focus on everyday life, often candid and unposed, usually in public spaces.
What is street photography?
This word describes the way colors appear in an image, which can be adjusted to make whites look truly white.
What is white balance?
This part allows you to select shooting modes like portrait, landscape, or manual.
What is the mode dial?
A shot where the camera moves alongside or circles the subject, often used in action scenes to create motion.
What is a tracking / dolly shot?
Photographers use this guideline to direct the viewer’s eye along lines in the photo, such as roads, fences, or rivers.
What are leading lines?
This type of photography emphasizes small subjects up close, showing fine details not easily seen by the naked eye.
What is macro photography?
This term is used when a photographer intentionally takes multiple photos at different exposures to combine them into one image with balanced highlights and shadows.
What is bracketing / HDR?
This camera setting adjusts how sensitive the sensor is to light, often increased when shooting in darker environments.
What is ISO?
This type of shot emphasizes the subject but also includes some background to show context or environment.
What is a medium-long / establishing shot?
This principle involves balancing visual “weight” in a photo so that one side doesn’t overpower the other, creating harmony in composition.
What is visual balance / symmetry?
This genre captures wide outdoor scenes, often emphasizing natural landscapes, skies, or mountains.
What is landscape photography?
The “triangle” connecting shutter speed, aperture, and ISO is called this, because these three settings control how bright or dark a photo is.
What is the exposure triangle?