Glossary

I don’t want my blog to be inaccessible to anyone because of the words I use, but I also do not want to have to explain things as I go along, nor do I want to repeat myself. I hope this can be a good resource for people who want to understand, but maybe wouldn’t go so far as to look these terms up themselves. It is alphabetized.

  • Aperture: the aperture is a set of metal plates, leaves, blades (usual term), whatever you want to call it, inside of a lens that regulate how much light the lens takes in. When the aperture is “wide open,” the blades are completely retracted and the lens is letting in the most amount of light that it can. When the aperture is “closed,” or “stopped down,” the blades have actuated into the lens, usually in a hexagonal, pentagonal, or octagonal formation (but sometimes more sides, or less; I have seen square apertures and circular ones) and let less light come through the lens to the sensor or film. Cameras will have different stops (f/ numbers) indicating how open or closed the aperture is. Smaller numbers, like 1.4, 2, or 3.5 indicate a more open aperture and larger numbers, like 16 or 22 indicate a more closed aperture. More open apertures correspond to thinner depths of field, and more closed apertures to wider ones. For more information or a detailed visual, here’s the Wikipedia page on apertures.

  • ASA: a scale which indicates the “speed” of a film—or how sensitive to light it is. High speed film A more sensitive film which can be shot indoors or at night will have a larger number (ex: 1600 ASA), and a less sensitive film designed for daylight will have a smaller number (ex: 50 ASA).

  • Assemblage: effectively a sculptural collage. I take pre-existing objects and forms and bring them together to create a new object.

  • Bokeh: the area of an image that is out of focus.

  • Depth of field: the distance range of a photograph that is in focus—for example, this could be from 5ft to 7ft away from the lens, with everything outside of the bounds of 5ft to 7ft being out of focus.

  • F stop (f/): number indicator of how closed the aperture is

  • Light meter: measures the light in an area and tells you what f stop and shutter speed to use based off of your ASA

  • Mirror slap: the sound created by the mirror in an SLR flipping up when a photograph is taken

  • Point-and-shoot: a camera with automatic settings that effectively does all of the work for you; these were small, sometimes pocket-able, and lovely in the right conditions. film point and shoots are very trendy

  • Rangefinder: a camera which uses a set of windows which are spaced apart from each other and connected to the viewfinder via a mirror system. This creates a double image effect that allows you to focus the camera without actually looking through the lens; as you actuate the focus ring, the mirror moves accordingly, and the images will overlap when desired focus is achieved. This is, at least, how I think it works—sorry for the somewhat convoluted explanation

  • Shutter speed: the length of time the shutter of the camera is open; how long the film or sensor is exposed to light.

  • SLR: single lens reflex. This is a camera which has a mirror in its body that reflects the image projected by the lens up into the viewfinder, allowing the photographer to see what the lens is “seeing.” When a picture is taken, the mirror actuates upwards, blocking out the viewfinder and allowing the film to get exposed.