The Camera

Focus - Due to the optical properties of photographic lenses, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly.

Lens - The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector.

Image capture - Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film or photographic plate. Video and digital cameras use an electronic image sensor, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing                                   


Film formats - A technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film, for either stills or filmmaking.

Aperture - A hole or an opening through which light travels.

Shutter - The Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released.
The focal-plane shutter operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plane.

Exposure - The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.

Depth of field - The distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.

F-stop - The f-number (sometimes called focal ratio) of an optical system is the ratio of the lens's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil.

Focal length - A measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light.