Digital Camera Terms to Know
Wondering what the terms are all about? If you have just received a new digital camera or thinking about buying one, it helps to know the terms. Below is a list of the most common terms that you are most likely to encounter.
Automatic mode – This setting on your camera will automatically set the focus, exposure and white-balancing. All you have to next is point and shoot
Burst Mode – With one press of the button this feature will allow you to take several pictures, one right after another in a quick fashion
Compression -Compacts your digital images, text and data into a file format
Digital Zoom – will allow you to enlarge the center of an image when taking a picture, and will allow you to get closer shots when recording video
JPEG – Compression format that is predominantly used in most digital cameras for pictures
MPEG-4 |MPEG-2 – Coding standards for audio and video images. MPEG stands for “Moving Picture Experts Group”
Lag Time – This refers to the time between pressing the shutter button and time it takes to capture the image. This is most noticeable in low light conditions because the camera is trying to adjust for the lighting conditions
LCD – This is the small screen on your digital camera that allows you to view your images or movies. It is often used as a viewfinder because it more convenient. LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display
Lens – Round glass or plastic piece that captures the image. Through sensors it will collect light and focusing information in automatic mode
Optical Image Stabilizer – this feature reduces the jerky picture effects. Good for fast action shots and for making movies
Megabyte – A megabyte equals 1024 kilobytes. It refers to the amount of information that can be stored on a Memory Card, Hard Drive or any other storage device
Pixels – Tiny red, green and blue color units that compose an image. A million pixels equal to one mega-pixel
Resolution – Refers to the number of pixels used to construct an image. The number of pixels will determine the quality of the images. The higher the mega-pixels the better the image results, especially if you will be making enlargement
Storage Card – Digital Camera Memory Card similar to film but much smaller
Viewfinder – Optical window used to compose your picture before taking an image. It can also be used during video recording for live view
White Balance – Also referred to as white balancing, it compensates for different lighting conditions so the colors in the images will look normal to the eye. In automatic mode the digital camera makes this adjustment automatically
