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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 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.


2. (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






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






4. 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






5. A lighting technique that is sometimes used in studio portrait photography. It can be achieved using one light and a reflector - or two lights - and is popular because it is capable of producing images which appear both natural and compelling with a






6. 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






7. 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






8. 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






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






10. 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






11. 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.')






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






13. 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






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






15. 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






16. Digital single lens reflex camera






17. 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






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






19. 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






20. 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






21. 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






22. 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






23. 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.






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






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






26. A lens aperture setting calibrated to an f-number






27. 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






28. 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.






29. 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






30. 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






31. 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.'






32. 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






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






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






35. (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






36. 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






37. 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.






38. 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






39. 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






40. 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.






41. 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.')






42. 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.






43. 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.






44. 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 -






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. 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






47. 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






48. 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.






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






50. 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