Digital Camera Lingo & Glossary

Every advance that’s made in technology creates new terms, acronyms and definitions along with it. The digital camera revolution is no different. When your shopping for your very first digital camera, it would be a good idea to get to know the lingo before you run out to buy. This will save you from that dumb feeling that you could get when your talking to someone about your purchase. This glossary should help you out!

Aperture

This is the size of the lens opening, it controls how much light comes through the lens. Aperture is measured in f-stops. A higher number means that a smaller amount of light will come through. Most of the digital cameras allow for manual aperture settings.

Auto Focus

This feature automatically focuses your picture at the touch of a button! By pressing slightly down on the shutter button, the auto focus feature will be activated and it will focus for you.

CCD

The CCD (charged couple device) is the electronic imaging device that creates your picture in the camera itself. In other words, it’s the electronic version of film for a digital camera. The higher pixel count in the CCD, the more detailed image and should you need to blow the picture up later on your computer the higher pixel count will mean that your blown up version will still be very clear.

Digital Image Stabilization

This is a process that keeps your pictures from being blurry from movement, in most situations.

Digital Zoom

This is a function which can enlarge a picture by increasing the size of the pixels. This often results in some fuzziness of the subject unless the pixel count is very high.

DPI

DPI stands for Dots Per Inch. It also refers to the resolutions of the picture. The higher the DPI, the sharper the picture.

F-Stop

F-stop is the number that’s assigned to a particular size opening on the aperture. The higher the number, the smaller the size of the opening. The larger numbers admit less light; smaller numbers admit more light.

File Format

This is how your digital pictures are stored. The most common formats are jpeg, GIF, tiff and RAW. The format that’s being used appears at the end of the file name. (yourpicture.jpeg)

Gigabyte

A gigabyte (GB) is a measurement of the data storage capacity. It is approximately on billion bytes.

LCD Screen

The liquid crystal display (LCD) screen is used to set and view digital pictures immediately after taking them.

Macro

This is a feature that allows the camera to take extreme close-ups of the subject.

Megabyte

A megabyte (MB) is a measure of data storage capacity. It is approximately one million bytes.

Megapixel

The megapixel is a unit of measurement in a digital picture. A megapixel equals on million pixels. The higher the megapixel total the higher the picture resolution will be.

Memory Card / Media Card

A memory card is a small electronic device that stores images. Storage capacities range from 16 MB to 4 GB. It is capable of storing still images or video or even a combination of the two.

Noise

This is graininess in an image, it can be caused by too little light or a defect in the electrical signal generated during the image capture process.

Optical Zoom

This is a type of zoom on a digital camera that enlarges the subject by the use of glass lenses. It’s the most important type of zoom on a digital camera.

Recycling Time

This is the amount of time that it takes for a digital camera to be able to take another picture.

Red Eye Reduction/Red Eye Removal

This is a process by which red eye coloring is reduced or eliminated completely. Red eye is more common in low light situations when the pupils are wide open and with those that have light colored eyes. Light reflecting off the back of the eye causes it to happen.

Scene Modes

Scene modes are pre-set programs in a digital camera that adjust the camera to a specific picture taking situation.

USB Connectivity

This is a popular way of connecting all sorts of devices such as a digital camera to computers. USB connectivity is used to download your photos from the camera to the computer.