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Photography Basics

Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. A function or shooting mode of a semi-automatic camera that permits the photographer to preset the aperture and leaves the camera to automatically determine the correct shutter speed. What does that mean? You select the aperture setting you want and






2. Graininess occurs when clumps of individual grains are large and irregularly spaced out in the negative. They are visible to the naked eye in the finished print - particularly enlargements - as sand-like particles. When this occurs - the picture appe






3. Film speed or sensitivity is designated by a single - almost universally-accepted common system developed by the International Organization for Standardization which uses the initials 'ISO' before the film-speed number or digital camera's sensitivity






4. If you're hand holding your camera - your shutter speed should not be slower than the reciprocal of your effective focal length (but not lower than 1/50th of a second) in order to avoid 'camera shake -' i.e. the blur that results from any slight move






5. A digital camera analyzes a scene using its white balance mode to determine areas that should be recorded as pure white. The camera adjusts the overall scene's color balance so that the areas meant to be reproduced as white in the picture will be whi






6. Tagged Image File Format - A standard digital image format for bitmapped graphics in an uncompressed state. The image files are much larger than compressed files - but can be opened in all image-processing programs.






7. Refers to a million pixels - and is used in describing the number of pixels that a digital device's image sensor has.






8. When the lens is focused on infinity - the nearest point to the camera that is considered acceptably sharp is the Hyperfocal point. By focusing on the hyperfocal point - everything beyond it to infinity remains in acceptable focus - and objects halfw






9. Existing light surrounding a subject; the light that is illuminating a scene without any additional light supplied by the photographer. This is also called 'available light'.






10. An image file type created in Adobe PhotoShop that results in pictures that are viewable with Adobe Acrobat - so someone (Mac or PC-user) who doesn't have PhotoShop can still view the image. It is often used in forms creation and for documents that r






11. A form of image compression when saving the image that discards data from it. Saving a picture as a JPEG uses lossy compression.






12. An image file type created in Adobe PhotoShop. It is uncompressed and contains data on editing that is done to the image. A PSD file is essentially PhotoShop's version of a TIFF file. It lets you save a picture you are working on with its layers - ch






13. Occurs when saving a digital image file in a format that does not result in a loss of data. A TIFF and PSD documents are examples of lossless image formats






14. Technique that involves taking a picture while moving the camera at a relatively slow shutter speed. It is almost always used when tracking a moving object - such as a race car - as it travels across the film plane. When properly carried out - the ob






15. Occurs when the photographer incrementally lights an otherwise darkened scene using a handheld flashlight or other small light source while the shutter remains open during a time exposure. The light is added to the scene in the manner of an artist us






16. An accessory that attaches as a collar to the front of a lens to prevent stray light from striking the surface of the lens - causing flare






17. Commonly abbreviated as 'TTL'. Refers to both exposure metering of the light passing through the lens (Through-the-lens metering - and TTL flash metering) and viewing a scene through the same lens that allows light to reach the sensor or the film (Th






18. Frames per second (fps) refers to the number of pictures that a camera is able to take in a second. A point-and-shoot camera typically shoots one or two pictures per second. Higher-end single lens reflex (SLR) cameras have much greater performance -






19. Occurs when the photographer incrementally lights an otherwise darkened scene using a handheld flashlight or other small light source while the shutter remains open during a time exposure. The light is added to the scene in the manner of an artist us






20. Or - electronic noise. This is the grainy look you find in a digital image caused by image artifacts. It is usually noticeable in shadow areas - and generally produced when shooting in low light. Noise is almost always unwanted and unattractive.






21. Any device used to reflect light onto a subject.






22. CMYK - An acronym for the ink colors Cyan (process blue) - Magenta (process red) - Yellow and Black used in four-color process printing.






23. An image file type created in Adobe PhotoShop that results in pictures that are viewable with Adobe Acrobat - so someone (Mac or PC-user) who doesn't have PhotoShop can still view the image. It is often used in forms creation and for documents that r






24. A shutter speed dial setting that indicates that the shutter will remain open as long as the release button is depressed - also known as the 'B setting ' or 'Bulb' setting. The 'B' setting is used for time exposures.

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25. Refers to a million pixels - and is used in describing the number of pixels that a digital device's image sensor has.






26. Existing light surrounding a subject; the light that is illuminating a scene without any additional light supplied by the photographer. This is also called 'available light'.






27. Also known as the 'Kodak neutral test card -' a gray card is an 8' X 10' (20 cm by 25.5 cm) card - about 1/8' thick - that is uniformly gray on one side. The gray side reflects precisely 18% of the white light that strikes it (corresponding to the ca






28. When the lens is focused on infinity - the nearest point to the camera that is considered acceptably sharp is the Hyperfocal point. By focusing on the hyperfocal point - everything beyond it to infinity remains in acceptable focus - and objects halfw






29. Or - electronic noise. This is the grainy look you find in a digital image caused by image artifacts. It is usually noticeable in shadow areas - and generally produced when shooting in low light. Noise is almost always unwanted and unattractive.






30. The range of distance in a scene that appears to be in focus and will be reproduced as being acceptably sharp in an image. Depth of field is controlled by the lens aperture - and extends for a distance in front of and behind the point on which the le






31. The visible light spectrum is scientifically described in terms of color temperature - and is measured in degrees Kelvin (K). The range for Kelvin on a pro digital camera is approximately 2000-10000.. These K settings are the scientific numbers behin






32. The primary colors of light (not of the inks used in printing) are red - green and blue - known by the acronym RGB.






33. (Graphics Interchange Format) is a small image file format that supports transparency and is constrained to a maximum of 256 colors - generally making it a poor choice for your digital images. When it was created - most computer video cards were able






34. Occurs when an image editing program is used to change an image's size. Increasing an image's size requires the addition of new pixels and decreasing size removes pixels.






35. A fall-off in brightness at the edges of an image - slide - or print. Can be caused by poor lens design - using a lens hood not matched to the lens - or attaching too many filters to the front of the lens. It can also be applied after the image is ta






36. A lens with the ability to focus from infinity to extremely closely - allowing it to capture images of tiny objects in frame-filling - larger-than-life sizes.






37. An image that is mainly made up of light tones - with relatively few mid-tones or shadows.






38. Describes a mostly dark image - with few highlights.






39. The range of distance in a scene that appears to be in focus and will be reproduced as being acceptably sharp in an image. Depth of field is controlled by the lens aperture - and extends for a distance in front of and behind the point on which the le






40. A million bytes - abbreviated as MB - Mb and sometimes Mbyte. Technically and more precisely - it refers to 1 -048 -576 bytes. Digital images are often referred to in terms of their 'size in Mb'.






41. A composition rule that divides the screen into thirds horizontally and vertically - like a tic-tac toe grid placed over the picture on a television set. Almost all of the important information included in every shot is located at one of the four int






42. The visible light spectrum is scientifically described in terms of color temperature - and is measured in degrees Kelvin (K). The range for Kelvin on a pro digital camera is approximately 2000-10000.. These K settings are the scientific numbers behin






43. An acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group that describes an image file format standard in which the size of the file is reduced by compressing it. JPEG - with its 16.7 million colors - is well suited to compressing photographic images. A 'JPEG'






44. Sometimes called camera raw - raw format - raw image format and raw. A digital image storage format that contains the most information possible from a camera's sensor. RAW data ( a RAW image file) is unprocessed. Some folks consider it to be the digi






45. Adding new pixels to a digital image between existing pixels. Interpolation software analyzes the adjacent pixels to create the new ones when enlarging an image file.






46. Graininess occurs when clumps of individual grains are large and irregularly spaced out in the negative. They are visible to the naked eye in the finished print - particularly enlargements - as sand-like particles. When this occurs - the picture appe






47. Bokeh describes the rendition of out-of-focus points of light. Bokeh is different from sharpness. Sharpness is what happens at the point of best focus. Bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus. Bokeh describes the appearance - or 'feel






48. Commonly abbreviated as 'TTL'. Refers to both exposure metering of the light passing through the lens (Through-the-lens metering - and TTL flash metering) and viewing a scene through the same lens that allows light to reach the sensor or the film (Th






49. A lens with the ability to focus from infinity to extremely closely - allowing it to capture images of tiny objects in frame-filling - larger-than-life sizes.






50. An acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group that describes an image file format standard in which the size of the file is reduced by compressing it. JPEG - with its 16.7 million colors - is well suited to compressing photographic images. A 'JPEG'