The parts of a digital camera

Mode dial

Zoom ring

Focus ring

Shutter release

Control buttons Main command dial

Viewfinder eyepiece

Shutter speed

The time which a shutter is open for a specific setting. So the shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter opens and closes on a camera.

Iso

In digital photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply in film photography. The lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ISO settings are usually used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds.

ISO

High ISO Low ISO

Aperture and depth of field

Depth of field, also called focus range or effective focus range, is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.

Manual exposure

Manual exposure is essentially just the photographer controlling everything, not just the light.

Automatic exposure

This to term is used when the option gives the photographer manual control of the aperture, whilst the camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed to achieve the exposure specified.

Colour balance

In photography colour balance is the global adjustment of the intensities of the colours.

White balance

The white balance is essentially the colour balance but on a digital camera.

Composition

In photography composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements.

Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points.

Analogous colours

Analogous colours are groups of three colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel with one being the dominant colour.

Complementary colours

Complementary colours are pairs of colours which when combined they produce a grey scale colour like white so they cancel each other out.

Macro

Macro photography is photography which produces photographs of small items larger than life size.