Decoding Photographic Jargon

We all have faced this scenario some time or the other in our life- We are sitting in a group with some other people, who happen to share a common interest. And while they are talking among themselves regarding their interest, they are using some strange words, which do not make any sense at all to us and we just sit there, awkwardly smiling like an idiot, trying to figure things out. That, my friend, is Jargon.The dictionary definition of Jargon is- "special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand". Photography, being a unique blend of art and science, has its own fair share of jargon as well. Whats more troublesome is, almost all the photography websites use them extensively while discussing things. So, unless you are well aware of them, it becomes very difficult to even comprehend what is being spoken about. So, this is my own feeble attempt at decoding some of the most commonly used photography jargon. It is impossible to cover all of them in a post, so I am concentrating on the widely used ones. If you want to add or contribute some others, feel free to do so in the comments.



Artifacts

Artifacts are unwanted aberrations caused by sensor, optics or internal image processing algorithms of a camera. The most common artifacts are blooming, maze artifacts, chromatic aberrations, moire, jaggies, JPEG compression, noise, and sharpening halos.

Aliasing

Ever wondered why diagonal lines appear jagged rather than straight or smooth in some images? This is because of aliasing, which happens due to the square nature of pixels - the minutest component that any picture is made of.

Aspect Ratio

The aspect ratio of an image is the value of the width of an image/frame, divided by the height of it and denoted in the form of a ratio such as 16:9, 4:3 or 16:10.

Barrel Distortion

Barrel Distortion is a common for of distortion in wide angle lenses where images tend to get 'spherized' or rounded towards the sides. Such distortion is more prominent in images which have many straight lines.


Blown Out

Used to denote the over-exposed bits in an image, which do not have any detail and the pixels are completely white.

Bokeh

Pronounced as "bo-ke", it is used to describe the out of focus, blurred part of an image, mostly in the background where the subject in the foreground is in focus and a wide aperture is used. This effect is most pronounced when there are some small light sources far back in the background and they are rendered as round, blurry bits of light.

Bracketing

Taking a series of images at different exposures in order to merge them later in Post to create a single image. Mainly used to create HDR images and by landscape photographers.

Clipped

Same as Blown out, but can also be used for the shadows. E.g- "The photo has lots of clipped shadows and highlights", meaning, the photo has lots of pixels that are pure black or pure white.

Colour fringing
Colour fringing is an aberrance caused by the lens used on cameras. It’s more visible on some cameras than others. It’s commonly seen as a blue or purple band lining a bright light source.

Crop factor

This is a bit complex one. The crop factor refers to the size of the image sensor of a camera relative to the "standard" 35mm sensor. Normally the APSC sensors used in the low end DSLRs have a crop factor of somewhere in the range of 1.4-1.6.

Depth of Field

Simply means the distance between the nearest and the farthest object in a scene that are in focus. Objects that are out of this area appear blurred.

EP or Exposure Compensation

Modifying the shutter speed and/or aperture to overrule the exposure set by the camera. Mainly used in Program, Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority mode.

EV or Exposure Value

Just another term of the Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO combination that can result in different exposures.

EXIF

Stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. Simply put, it is a file containing information like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance etc embedded in the actual image file itself.

Fast Glass

Glass means lens and fast glass simply means a lens with a wide maximum aperture. There is no set guideline but lenses with f 2.8 and larger are generally called fast glass.

Interpolation
Interpolation is a method used to increase the number of pixels in a digital image. It basically adds in extra pixels to increase the size of an image intelligently. While it's not as good as actually having an image of higher resolution, it's not as bad as just resizing an image without the addition of extra pixels.

Kelvin

Used to denote absolute measurement of color temperature. The lower numbers represent warmer colors while higher numbers represent cooler colors.

Metering Modes

Different modes defining how a camera calculates the light available and decides upon an exposure.


Nifty 50

A 50mm prime lens.

Pincushion Distortion

Pincushion is the opposite of the barrel distortion, where an image gets pinched in the middle and lines around the sides curve inwards. This form of distortion is most common with zoom lenses


SOOC

Straight Out Of Camera, meaning the image has not been edited in any way.


Stopping Down

The act of closing down the aperture. Suppose if you change the aperture from f4 to f8, you can say, "I stopped down from f4 to f8"


TTL

Through The Lens. Mainly used to denote metering system.

Vignetting
Another form of distortion found in Zoom lenses, Vignetting occurs when the barrel of the camera becomes visable in the corners of images.


Wide Open

Shooting at the widest aperture of a lens.