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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 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






2. 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






3. 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






4. 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 -






5. 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'






6. 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






7. 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






8. 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






9. The time an hour or less before the sun goes down and around fifteen minutes after the sun has set. Sunlight is usually warmer and more complimentary to skin tones at this time - and the angle of the light can provide depth to portraits and landscape






10. In a studio - the main light is placed fairly high - directly in front of the face - aimed at the center of the nose. It casts a shadow shaped like a butterfly beneath the nose.






11. 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






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






13. 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






14. 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






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






16. A complementary color is one of a pair of primary or secondary colors that are in opposition to each other on a color wheel.






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






18. A lens in which focal length is variable. Elements inside a zoom lens shift their positions - enabling the lens to change its focal length - in effect - providing one lens that has many focal lengths. (Also called a 'Variable focus lens.')






19. 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






20. Digital single lens reflex camera






21. 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'.






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






23. 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






24. 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






25. 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






26. 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






27. 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.






28. A clear - neutral filter that absorbs ultraviolet radiation - with no effect on visible colors. The skylight filter is a UV filter with a pale rose tinge to it.






29. 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






30. A contract in which a model consents to the use of his or her images by the photographer or a third party. Sometimes referred to simply as a 'release.'






31. 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.






32. 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.






33. 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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34. Describes a mostly dark image - with few highlights.






35. An image of a single color in differing shades. A black and white or sepia-toned image is a monochrome. Another monochromatic image is the cyanotype - or blue-green image made popular in blueprints.






36. 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






37. 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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38. 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






39. 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






40. 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'.






41. Lens with a focal length approximately equal to the diagonal of the film format or of a digital camera's image sensor. A scene viewed through a normal lens appears to have the same perspective as if it was being viewed 'normally' without a lens - jus






42. 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






43. 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.






44. 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






45. 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 -






46. 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'.






47. Exchangeable Image File Format. Data produced by a digital camera that becomes attached to each image made by the camera - including make & model of camera - date & time - image format (e.g. jpeg - tiff - etc.)and dimensions - color & exposure modes






48. 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.






49. (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






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